The Allstate Arena got a new scoreboard! It looks just slightly larger than the old one, but it has new displays in each corner of the board, plus a small display above the main display to show advertising and then a large ring below where they could scroll messages and graphics around. It's like a real step-up in class for the place.

Went to customer service and got our Season Ticketholder gift which this year is a mini wolves helmet with Darren Haydar's autograph mounted on a base. I expected an actual mini helmet, but this feels like it was made out of the same material (whatever it is) that they make the bobbleheads out of, and it's painted the maroon color of the team - which is not the color of any of the helmets that the team actually wears. Shockingly, this is actually a pretty classy item for the Wolves.

Toward the very end of overtime, we're struggling at the Moose net. I can't remember what I saw, but I think it was a Moose tripping a Wolves player. We were controlling the puck, so there's a delayed penalty call. Ondrej Pavelec gets pulled out of the net for an extra attacker. With 56 seconds left in overtime, Steve Martins gets the puck near the net, gets tied-up in traffic so he passes the puck...

... to nobody.

It sails all the way down the ice... into our net. Game over - we score the winning goal for the Moose.

Our well-fought seven-game win streak is snapped.

So, the goal can't be credited to a Wolves player - it has to be credited to the player that last touched the puck: Manitoba's goaltender Drew MacIntyre, marking just the ninth time in the history of the American Hockey League that a netminder has been credited with a goal.

A good, but not stellar attendance tonight - 9,431. Nothing much to say about the game itself... but it's your typical Saturday night group outings night again, this time with little kids next to Carol... who ALMOST tolerated them well.. and actually said civil words to one or two during the game...

...oh, and there was one of the Wolves' Post Game Skate parties. We stuck around so that I could take some pictures. One of the first girls to go on the ice fell and hit her head pretty bad. I don't think see ever made it out onto the ice.

First, this is starting to feel like it's turning into a real rivalry. Rockford is pretty physical. They're fast, and every hit just seems to have a little more to it.

The attendance was 11,419, but it felt bigger than that 12,022 2 weeks ago, but that's paid and I knew that there weren't that many because of the cold. Of course, a lot of groups... I got awfully pissed at the guy next to Carol that snatched a Chipotle Stress Ball right out of the air that was coming right at me during the pre-game... I mean REALLY pissed... I don't even come up to his shoulders and he reached in front of Carol to do it... I was robbed...

I'm not used to a team that doesn't shoot all that much. I remember games where we actually had 60 shots for a game just a season ago. In the 1st Period tonight, the Wolves had 3 shots. Now, on the plus side - we had 2 goals on those 3 shots (we both wound up with 27 shots for the night).

We were up 3-2 toward the end of the game. With 4.3 seconds left, Alexandre Giroux had a Power Play goal. (The Power Play was because Rockford pulled their goalie to add a man.. and somehow they eventually wound up with too many men on the ice)

After that, I'm not really sure what happened. I wasn't paying attention... I remember the goal... the teams were skating back to the bench to change lines... i looked away...

... Next thing I know, the benches are fighting... somebody from Rockford reached around the partition that separates the benches and hit one of our guys in the face... the officials are trying to stop the mêlée that ensued. I remember one linesmen going down after trying to step between two combatants as they lost their footing. it's a mess... players are trying to hold team members back. OK, well, goalie Robert Gherson was laughing his ass off holding on to someone... but still, things were bad.

Next thing I know, the ref is skating away from the bench and signals the time keeper by using a finger, pointing downward, and circling it ... sure enough he told him to just run down the clock - this wasn't going to get fixed to be able to play out the 4.3 seconds left on the clock.

By the time everyone gets off the ice, both coaches get a Game misconduct - Coach (75.5(iii)), both Fahey's (there was on on each side) get 10 minute Misconduct - Unsportsmanlike conduct (75.4), one guy on each side gets both a 10 minute Misconduct - Unsportsmanlike conduct (75.4) and a Game misconduct - Unsportsmanlike conduct (75.5(i))... and you just want to know what made a Rockford guy get a 10 minute Misconduct - Abuse of officials (40.4).

Unfortunately, because of the group sales, again, they were a bunch of "amateurs". They just weren't paying attention, getting up during play... and then ANOTHER one of my oh-so-many pet peeves: parents just not paying attention to their children, as evidenced by the kid next to carol that kept kicking her as he was crawling all over the seat during the game.

We haven't actually seen the Manchester Monarchs before (great colors - a royal purple and gold). It seems that all of these teams that we don't see often (because they're in different conferences and divisions) seem to be stronger skaters. Not bigger necessarily, but faster, stronger. It makes watching the play a lot more fun. When the score was finally tied 1-1, I had no idea that the Wolves would actually score 4 more goals (especially after Robert Gherson let the first goal softly trickle in)...

Another item for the game - 2 referees. We don't normally see that at our games, and we had never see either of these guys before (Kyle Rehman and Mike McGeough). I could see where this would be be so advantageous, as one of the refs would always be behind the play and it would cut down on some of the "chippyness" that is just so common.

Oh, speaking of jerseys... the Wolves have had this whole promotional campaign this year that is somewhat patterned after the presidential campaigns here "Vote Wolves 2008 - Hockey for the fans". This game was one of the three where the Wolves were wearing special red-whit-blue jerseys that are being auctioned-off for charity tomorrow (they always have 2 jerseys a year that specially designed to be auctioned for charities... the other jersey is always for St. Patrick's Day)

Cool game: The two first place teams in the Western Conference. Before the game, Toronto was 25-8-0-4 with 54 points and the Wolves were 27-9-1-0 with 55 points.

And, it turned into a good game... after a while. A bit more exciting as it went. It just felt a bit tense along the way.

And.. still... what the hell is a Marlie? (Thank you Wikipedia... "The team is named after the former Toronto Marlboroughs junior hockey team, but the abbreviated "Marlies" name was chosen to avoid any potential association with the similarly named cigarette brand.)

Second thing: Just seeing some of the fans that for some reason all showed up tonight. No Bob & Chris, and Laura is back at college and Joey is probably off somewhere... but to have LeRoy and Patti back in front of us was great. And to have Scotty and Joe show up.. .and re-spark the Penalty Box Police. It was a lot of fun as a fan, just because of these people around us for a change... and it sure is a hell of a lot better than the ignorant disrespectful noobies that are up the section from us...

Back at the Allstate Arena for some AHL Hockey action. The season has started, and it's time to settle-in and start to gear-up to support the Chicago Wolves again. We watched the Season Opener in Houston last week and were mildly impressed with what we saw - again, new team, new faces, but some names that we enjoyed seeing again. I feel good about this year - I'm not as negative as I've been about this team as I have been in prior years... 10,209 showed-up, down from last year... but still a decent showing.

Nothing new around the Allstate Arena... the open and player introductions are about the same... even the faces in the seats around us of the returning Season Ticket holders are all there... and, you know... that's not a bad thing...

Well, since our baseball season seamed to evaporate many many MANY weeks ago, we start to turn our attention toward... Hockey Season.

And, since the AHL is so cheap to go watch... and since they were playing at their practice facility which is in OUR TOWN at the Hoffman Estates Park District Community Center & Ice Arena - we went to a preseason game of the Chicago Wolves against a brand new team - the Lake Erie Monsters.

I felt bad for those guys when they took to the ice... because the only jerseys they had, were obviously practice jerseys that just had their numbers on them - both front and back - and no team emblem/logo on the front.

Our guys... well.. they didn't have their names on their backs... perhaps because MOST of the guys on the ice will be gone by Monday, but at least their jerseys looked like they've played before.

Though, after about 35 minutes of play you knew that most of them didn't play .. at least in the AHL.

I mean... 6 unanswered goals?

like i said... preseaon... we don't get very attached to them... I'll start worrying when the season starts next week...

Well, I didn't talk about it, but the Wolves swept Milwaukee and made it to the next round, which quite frankly shocked us.

So, here we are in the next round against the Iowa Stars. 2,408 in attendance - pretty typical for a weeknight playoff game. And what a game - 2 goals in the first 1:03, the last goal with 8 seconds left in the game, and our 6th goal was a shorthanded empty-netter. A VERY strong game, a shutout, and we forced them to change goalies.

What the hell are we doing in a building that is this cold? The weather FINALLY has just busted open... it was 83°F outside!!!! OK, it was a little windy, but it was hot! Well, maybe hot is a little strong.

The intensity was almost the same, but we just dominated again... OK, not really the same intensity, but sort of close... The Admirals Booster Club was back in the same place... confident that their team would take the series back...

No such luck. And yes, their one goal was going to happen with the way they were swarming the net.

Now, for a team that I wrote-off before the playoff, they lead a Best Of 7 series 2-0...

I noticed the last time that we played the Admirals: The intensity of the play was so escalated. And no in the playoffs, we were able to see that first hand. Speed, scrappiness, always going after the puck, always trying to control. We SO outplayed the Admirals in the first two periods.

Now - third period? OK, different story. The energy level wasn't exactly the same. And then, they allowed a Penalty Shot (though we question on whether the penalty that happened really warranted the shot) which brought them to one goal of a tie...

Was SO enjoying the game though... I just hope they can keep this up.

Oh... and the added little... ummm... entertainment... the Admirals Booster Club was seated the next section over... yeah... they tried to cheer their team on... they were pretty cocky... but they were awfully quiet each time we scored...

Ok... 7 penalties all game, making for a nice intense struggle throughout the game. It was still strange though...

Why?

The first 6 penalties were all Hooking calls. We were convince the ref (Dean Morton) only knew the one infraction, and couldn't call anything else. It tool until 7:40 in the 3rd to get a different penalty (Cross-checking).

Oh.. and we didn't know if our last goal counted, since it happened right at the final horn...green light no red light... then the red light came on later... sure enough, looking at the game summary, they scored at at 19:59 in the 3rd (scored by Darren Haydar, his 38th of the season)

The Wolves scored at 4:13 into the period - it was the first shot of the game for both teams. Milwaukee didn't have a shot on goal until 15:45 into the period! We were up 3-0 until 18:24 in the first. Now, this is important, because after being up 3-0, Milwaukee had 5 unanswered goals through 17:32 in the 3rd.. .how do you lose a 3 goal lead? Now, I've complained about our goalie situation all year... they are inept and we will never get through the playoffs without a good netminder... only thing worse that this team does, is pulling the goalie when down by a goal. the defense just can't support that. Sure enough, we let them into the zone and they scored at 19:57 in the third.

The story here is actually the weather... it's miserable, Winter Storm Warnings... Carol continually questioned me and commented as we drove toward the Allstate Arena. It was sloppy. Fortunately there weren't a lot of people on the road, but it was very slow going... I was surprised on how many cars were in the parking lot. Clearly, this was... or was going to be... a well-attended game. Another way to tell - The Grille was open for business - it's only open and staffed when there's a good crowd.

Clearly, the AHL counts tickets sold and not turnstile for attendance figure, because the official attendance tonight is listed as 14,113.

This wasn't the same team that we had saw the last time we were here. Lethargic. We were outshot 15-5 in the first period. I took a walk during the first intermission - I saw somebody going outside for a smoke, and it looked like a blizzard outside..

The game sucked - another 1-0 game... until they pulled our goalie in the last minute... dumb move if your defense hasn't stepped-up. Omaha scored.

Speaking of Omaha, this is the first time that we saw this team. The Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights. Odd name. Ak-Sar-Ben is Nebraska spelled backward. And speaking of spelling...

...the tickets for tonight's game, as well as tickets for another game coming up, where all misprinted.. instead of saying

What a great game for a change! All six goals scored by someone different - everybody stepping up... a nice change... (2 powerplay and one shorthanded, too)

This was the first home game in a few weeks.. they've been on the road for 9 games... all in Canada.. I think their record was 5-2-1-1 which is pretty good for them.. points in all but 2 games.

Always strange seeing a former Wolves player on an opposing team - today it was Ben Simon - he hasn't been with the Wolves since the 2004-05 season, and he's been up and down since, but.. i remember the guy... Carol claims she never heard of him... thought she would remember Benny.. and he had 3 penalties tonight...

Boy, this is getting messy... a team comes to town with a losing record, and yet we play down to their level.

And what does the Team Name mean anyway?

Only redeeming point was not the game itself, but the regular Wednesday Night food eating contest during the first intermission called "Hungry Hungry Humpday". This week - MY FAVORITE snack - Edy's (or Dreyer's) Dibs. It was how many Ice Cream Dibs (I don't know the flavor, but it looked like vanilla) you can eat in 4 minutes. I SO could have done this contest... and, it turned out, that it wasn't how many you can eat in 4 minutes, but rather how quick you could eat the 60 Dibs in the bucket, Since the winner finished before the 4 minute mark. If ever there was a food to eat in "Hungry Hungry Humpday", this was mine. I wish I knew about it...

Bad game - the slide continues now to 4 games lost. The Bulldogs scored three time in the third - 2 on power plays, one on an empty net. HATE that. (The three Wolves goals were all on Power Plays - a rarity.) Poor game.

Great matchup tonight - The Wolves (26-12-1-2) and Penguins (26-7-2-2) are the number one and two offensive powers in the league. A little boring, but hard fought, ending in the first shutout of the season for the Wolves.

DDarren Haydar had ended his 39-game point streak on Tuesday. His point streak finished tied with Wayne Gretzky for the fourth-longest of its kind in professional hockey history, as well as an American Hockey League and Wolves franchise record, and he leads the league with 55 assists and 79 points.

The non-hockey sort of related item - the 5 millionth fan came through the turnstile.

What a lousy game... the boys were outplayed big time... they were stronger, faster, more intense. I'm still not liking Fred Brathwaite in goal... in two periods the Wolves held Rochester to just 7 shots... but Freddie allowed 3 goals on those 7 shots (we out shot them 39 to 15).

There was another almost depressing thing... the league's Points Leader Darren Haydar looked like he just wasn't getting setup and taking shots all night. Then, with 8.8 seconds left in the game, he finally gets an assist on a shorthanded goal.

Why was this noteworthy? He leads the AHL with 53 assists and 75 points (the most by a player in Wolves history through 36 outings) and ranks fifth with 22 goals. He has more assists than any player in the league has points, (excluding linemate Brett Sterling.) His +24 plus/minus rating is also the best in the league. They guy is good, fun to watch... I thought he wouldn't get a point in this sloppy game...

Only 7,532 people for a Saturday night, which makes it feel empty... if it wasn't for the number of idiots getting-up in the middle of play without waiting for the damn whistle... I don't know, it's my Pet Peeve at a hockey game.

A typical weekday night - 4,028 people there... and Carol and I were talking that, we like it when it's empty. Oh sure, we love when there nobody sitting around us, so they're not standing up and trying to get something to drink or eat in the middle of play (Hey! Idiot! Wait for the whistle!). But even better is being able to hear more of what is going on during the game: the sound of the skates, the passing, the checks, the yelling from the bench...

A pretty good game tonight... we had 4 goals in the 3rd, one shorthanded, 2 within a minute of each other...

Oh, and the referee, Shaun Davis, was whistle happy with Interference calls, including one of Goaltender Interference against Nathan Oystrick when he hit Dan Ellis when he was out past the circles playing a puck! How is that interference? Did we not see something????

First, the team: being away from home for a few weeks has really helped the team. We've had only 1 loss on the road, and they brought that discipline home. They played very well tonight... they're a lot faster than prior years, and they seem to setup plays a bit better... though goalie Michael Garnett needs to be chained to the net to stop him from roaming so much.

Now, let's talk about the 13,718 idiots at the game...

WAIT FOR THE WHISTLE!!!

All of the damn group sales people, sitting in the middle of our section, who just don't understand that YOU DO NOT STAND UP AND MOVE THROUGH YOUR ROW TO LEAVE TO GO... SOMEWHERE... WHILE PLAY IS GOING ON.

A steady, continuous stream of kids, parents, parents and kids, and 20-somethings needing beer developed thoughout the game... disturbing us... the people behind us... the people behind them... ad infinitum...

I am thoroughly surprised that we saw any of the game, let alone seeing the goals... oh, and that last series of fights all going at the same time (i have never seen a player give up during a fight)

I haven't talked about the games much... probably because I've been really distracted this year by the fans around us. There are people that we knew for the prior years that appear to be gone, giving up their tickets. A few people moved around. Then, there are a few new people that we don't remember seeing before.

I haven't been enjoying the games much... other than the team sucking at home, I'm getting pissed at some of the people around us. You tend to notice things more when there's under 4000 people in the place. I'll have to talk about it sometime... there are just idiots at the game... is it because the sport draws this "type"?

Another season has come, and we're back at the Allstate Arena for some AHL Hockey action. The Wolves have a 2-0 start to the season, and tonight's the home opener. Half the adventure of the first home game is actually just looking around and seeing what people are back in their seats (some people are missing, some people changed seats, some people don't even look the same!)

The other adventure is seeing the team for the first time... a bunch of guys that we just don't know. And, continuing from last year, a disappointing showing. 12,128 show up to see a loss.

And, unlike last year, there's no local post season baseball to fall back on.

Oh.. and the Milwaukee Admirals? New logo. Has NOTHING to do with an Admiral... it's a stylized skull with a pirate hat...

So, we took a leisurely drive from the Sox game to the north suburbs to go to the final Chicago Wolves game of the season. (We had a lot of time to kill, even when stopping for dinner and shopping at Office Depot.)

Other than being the last game, it was also a special night - the retirement of Steve Maltais' number to the rafters. Malts played for the Wolves for the first 11 years of their franchise life (the only player to do so), so he's been a cornerstone of the team over the years. He was Captain 10 times. They had the old IHL Turner Cup on display (we won it twice during Steve's tenure) and the AHL Calder Cup (only won that one once, but think about this - 3 Championship Cup's in the franchise's first 8 years!) Before the game during warm-up, the Wolves players wore one-of-a kind No. 11 jerseys that were eventually be signed by Maltais and the player who wore it and were raffled-off.

The game was really good, like the players thought it actually meant something, which it didn't.

We were winning 5-0 in the 2nd, when at 16:29 there was an altercation. No, who are we kidding, we're talking fight - an all out, fists-flying-and-no-stopping-even-when-the-guy-falls-to-the-ice pummeling, all courtesy of Francis Lessard, a fight we haven't seen out of Frankie in years. The kind where Frankie get 2 minutes for Instigating, 5 minutes for Fighting, 10 minutes for Misconduct - Instigating and a Game misconduct - Third man in (56(d)) and another Game misconduct - Aggressor (56(a)). What a way to end the season.

From here, things deteriorated, where Houston got 2 goals in the second, then scores again in the third before we wake up and score one (shorthanded) and Houston comes back with another two and the Wolves barely win their final game of the season.

Quietly, and obviously when you saw the end of it, another retirement happened tonight. Long-time man-behind-the-wolf Jim Santee skated his last "Black Betty" as the mascot Skates during the Second Intermission.

Hard to believe that the Wolves have been on a tear, winning their last 9 games in a row, struggling to make the last playoff spot.

Hard to believe...

...because they sucked tonight. You can tell they're jelling as a team, late in the season, but I think I can sum up their problems tonight in one word: passing. It was all off - no one could hit anyone wit ha pass, it was always errant... or stupid (stupidly passed to an opponent, mostly)

Hard to believe we out-shot them 36-21 and only come up with 1 goal (which was setup soooo nicely)

Very good game tonight. Too bad Carol didn't go (she stayed at home "recuperating"). Hardly anybody from our "extended Wolves family" was there. Actually, I was glad Carol wasn't there because the guy that would have been sitting next to her and his 3 kids would have drove her nut. Drove me nuts. It was obvious that they never heard of nor heeded the "Wait For The Whistle" warning that's given in the announcements before the game.

Great intensity. Great swarming the puck, great defense in front of the net. They looked really good. Too bad we're still not in a playoff position. It may be the first time in franchise history that we'll miss the playoffs. Actually, Carol and I are planning on it - we didn't buy any postseason tickets this year. I mean, why? If we get there, we're not going anywhere, so why spend the money that we don't have?

We knew we were in trouble in the parking lot, watching people dressed-up for St. Patrick's Day pouring out of a motor coach. The team wore this year's St. Patrick's Day Jersey (which will be auctioned-off next week). I REALLY like this year's jersey.

The game was a little odd. Peoria came out very strong. Their first goal almost felt like it was a swarm that came down the ice and impossible to defend. The game was pretty physical and at least the boys seamed like they were in the game the whole way. Unfortunately, we ended regulation in a tie. Overtime was well fight but unproductive.

Then came the shootouts. I hate shootouts. I feel that our team can't defend them at all - I mean we've had six goalies this year. Their 3rd shooter was the first guy to score, and we were out when their 5th shooter scored... with nothing from us.

I was just here 24 hours ago... it's a ll a blur... why do I insist on following and supporting this losing team...

The biggest surprise of all, other than nobody that normally sits near us actually showed-up for the game (they were probably getting as overwhelmed as us), was that the Wolves re-signed long-time defenseman Bob Nardella, who was dressed and played tonight.

In what is becoming too familiar - starting goalie Tuomas Tarkki gave up 2 real easy goals and was replaced with Michael Garnett, who was slightly better.

It was a struggle, but the "new" team showed-up we we actually won.

Hate to say this, but even with 11,994 people there, it was nice not having Brad and Jen in front of us, letting us stretch out a bit...

It's been just 48 hours ago since we've been here, watching the Wolves give a typical losing performance.

Tonight, we're facing an old nemesis who used to be in our division, but now leads our conference a full 30 points ahead of us (we're 12th behind them). We don't see them as often as we used to, so this rivalry can't be in the same shape.

We score first. No big deal, we've been there before. We score again. OK, a little different. The referee tonight - Francois St. Laurent - starts calling really tacky penalties. We have 3 guys in the box, and we get through the period without giving up a goal.

The usually flat 2nd period goes halfway before the Griffins score a goal, but then we get one back. There's a lot of holding, pushing, shoving, boarding and things progress where they slowly get out of hand. Yes, the old rivalry is still there. It gets bad enough when their goalie Joey MacDonald takes down one of our guys after getting bumped into. He gets our guy on the ice and starts pummeling him in the head with his blocker.

This is really out of control, but we come out on top 5-2. How can it be that we can't beat teams that are worse than us but we beat the Conference leader? How schizophrenic is this team?

What made the experience all the worse was the guy sitting next to Carol who was frenetically jumping up and down in his seat all night and yelling odd things at the ref ("go back to Walmart" "you missed your short bus" "go back to Canada you hoser") and few obscenities along the way that made the whole section uneasy.

First period - the boys look OK, they keep the puck in the offensive zone most of the time and just seem to control the game. We outshot them 17-9, though we were tied 1-1. Second period - totally different team shows up on ice. We still outshoot them 15-9, but now we're losing 4-1 and our starting goalie Tuomas Tarkki is replaced with Michael Garnett, who gets booed when he comes on the ice because the fans don't trust him.

We got to the game over a half an hour late - and we walk in to hear Wayne Messmer just doing the National Anthem - it turns out DePaul's basketball game ended later than it normally did, pushing everything out in time.

I really can't tell you what happened during the game because I can't explain the play. The team didn't really appear to be all that different, but apparently it was. They weren't quicker, they were just getting to the puck better, they were passing better, they were shooting better. How else can you explain this losing team's 8-0 shutown win? We scored on both of their goalies like we knew what we were doing. In the meantime, the Barons were barely taking shots all game. It was a pretty clean game, too. Felt like it went fast because of the lack of penalties.

HUGE crowd - 16,607 fans - the 10th largest crowd in franchise history. Has to be because of Group Sales.

During the First Intermission we had a wedding on the ice. Vladimir Len, or Vlad, is an off-ice official that sits in the box below us, usually as the Penalty Timekeeper. He's marrying a fan that sits over to the left of the visitor Penalty Box, Holly. The team even had a press release about them, and it was shown on the scoreboard and broadcast as part of the game over Comcast cable.

You know - I couldn't do this. I could get married at Comiskey, but I couldn't get married at a hockey game.

Wedding Bells to Ring at Wolves Game on Feb. 25

02/13/2006

The Chicago Wolves will host an on-ice wedding during the first intermission when the team battles the Cleveland Barons at the Allstate Arena on Sat., Feb. 25, at 7 p.m.

Holly Braun, a Wolves season-ticket holder since 2001, will marry Vladimir Len, an American Hockey League off-ice official and former team season-ticket holder, in the eight-minute ceremony. Wolves season-ticket holder “Tattoo” Ron Gac (GACK), an ordained minister and tattoo artist, will make the bond official.

The Wolves will provide the newlyweds with flowers and a wedding cake, courtesy of Jewel-Osco, and a night’s stay in the Presidential Suite at the Wyndham Hotel in Rosemont.

Braun and Len – a Chicago native – met at the 1999 International Hockey League All-Star Game in Cincinnati and have been attending Wolves games together for five seasons.

The Wolves game – along with all regular-season and playoff contests – and ceremony will be televised live in the Chicago area on Comcast Cable. Log on chicagowolves.com for the channel designation in your area.

This team SUCKS. It's painful to watch. there's only a glimpse every so often of what these guys can do. It's not just the Atlanta draft picks, even the non-Atlanta Wolves-Contract players suck. We don't have a goalie worth a damn.And we've had SIX of them!

We're at that point in the Season where the Chicago Wolves come up with a special jersey to wear for 3 home games so they can be auctioned-off for charity. This year is a Mardi Gras themed jersey to benefit the Red Cross and Hurricane Katrina relief. It's odd seeing the team in yellow. Somehow I've accepted their St. Patrick's Day jerseys as their fourth jersey (after the Maroon, White, and alternate Black jerseys). The auction doesn't happen until tomorrow, so any of the prices I saw today make no difference to tomorrow. The jerseys were all over $500 and the top-end for today was $1,000. you could expect that all to at least double tomorrow.

Let's just say that they color of the jerseys makes no difference to the performance on the ice. 6:21 into the First period we were already losing 3-0, on 4 shots (the first shot went off the post. Michael Garnett was terrible and was pulled for Adam Berkhoel. And the went on a tear of 4 goals into the 2nd. By the end of the 2nd, the Admirals had tied it and we never came back, losing 6-4 (though I thought that Milwaukee's last shot of the game came before the buzzer as they shot into our empty net and they'd make it 7-4, but I guess it was too late.)

I have to tell you, the team is so bad it's making Carol re-think season tickets for next year. She's just not that interested. I totally understand why. I'm surprised there's been as many people to the games as there have been.

It's an inferior product that they're putting out there for the first time in franchise history. We suck, We're not getting consistency and not showing improvement.

We looked bad at the beginning of the game - Peoria was fast and aggressive, passed the puck and handled the puck very well. By 4:09 in the first, we were already down 2-0.

Then, the most remarkable thing happened.

We started scoring.

And never stopped.

We set a franchise record for goals in a game (11) and goals in a period (7 in the 2nd Period).

Strange coincidences permeated the game - like our 7th goal was by #7 Mark Popovic, the 8th goal was by #8 Pat Dwyer and our 10th goal was by #10 Ramzi Abid. Weird!

Now how about this - 11 goals on 22 shots?!?!? Both teams went through two goaltenders (I think we did just to give them some rest, since we so far in the lead)

And we got called for Too Many Men on the Ice THREE TIMES!

Now, it didn't hurt that in the 2nd at 14:58 Rocky Thompson went after Billy Tibbetts and gave us a power play for some time after getting 2 minutes for Roughing, 2 minutes for Instigating, 5 minutes for Fighting, a 10 minutes Misconduct - Instigating and a Game misconduct - Aggressor (56(a)). We only got one Power Play goal during that time - our major downfall of the past season(s).

Referee Bob Langdon called a very uneven game. We were up 3-1 in the 3rd (Tuomas Tarkki actually looked great), and then all of a sudden were called for some cheap penalties and the Bears got back into the game and tied it 3-3.

In overtime, Langdon calls Kip Miller for Holding the Stick (which we're now dubbing the Brokeback Mountain penalty) in Kip Miller at 3:19 into overtime, and the Bears score 4:32 into overtime. The Wolves went nuts, pitching and hollering at Langdon. According the the scoresheet, the Bench got a 10-minute Gross misconduct at the end of the game.

REALLY SCARY part of the game - sometime during the 3rd, one of the Bears got hit in the throat. He went don in front of his net, struggled to get to his feet, coasted back to the bench and collapsed in the bench. Everything else happened pretty quickly. A doctor cam onto the ice and was escorted to the bench. Paramedics and police brought out a gurney. Players and coaches stood in front of the bench door, making "snow" with their skates on the ice. (I think they were applying it to the guy's throat). He eventually stood-up and you could see that his throat was really red and wet.

9-11-1-3, 22pts, in 6th place in the division, 20 points behind the first place Aeros, only 1 point ahead of the last place Rampage. 6 different goaltenders, Goals Against averages between 1.47 and .4.41

WE SUCK

Nice to see our Power Play is still missing after many years - 1 / 8.

Lackluster. Unmotivated.

The Big Deal for this game was supposed to be Bobby Hull. Let's just say expectations weren't managed well. Did he skate in the warmups? No. He dropped the Ceremonial First Puck, then retired to the Budweiser bar, where he stayed for the rest of the game yo sign autographs. There was a lot of Hull memorabilia that was Silent Auctioned to raise money for Wolves' charities.

Somehow, we expected more. Just like our team.

Update: WOW. Holy Crap. I've heard stories about Bobbie Hull signing autographs for his fans, that he wouldn't stop until everybody was satisfied. Say what you want about the guy, but he finished signing everything at 1:30 A.M.!

Went to the Wolves practice facility here in town. I was too curious about this Media Alter from Wednesday night. There was a big tournament going on, so there were a lot of parents and kids there, but no indication of a press conference.

I talked to a few people and the rumor flying around was that Bobby Hull was in the building.

The Chicago Wolves have “signed” National Hockey League Hall-of-Fame left wing BOBBY HULL. He will be in uniform when the Wolves host the Milwaukee Admirals at the Allstate Arena on Sat., Dec. 17, at 7 p.m.

“I’m proud to be with the Wolves,” said HULL. “They’re a part of Chicago and I’m pleased to be back because it’s the greatest city in the world with the greatest sports fans in the world. With the new rules today, maybe I could score 25 goals – of course I’ll be 67 in January.”

HULL also spent seven seasons in the World Hockey Association with Winnipeg (1972-1979), registering 303 goals and 638 points in 411 contests.

The Pointe Anne, Ontario, native was recognized twice as the NHL’s most valuable player (1964-65 and 1965-66), captured three league scoring titles (1959-60, 1961-62 and 1965-66) and garnered one Lady Byng Memorial Trophy for combining sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct with a high standard of playing ability (1965-66).

“Our scouts have loved this guy since the ‘50s. He’s a young 66, and with the new rules, we expect him to light it up like never before,” said Wolves General Manager Kevin Cheveldayoff. “It should be a treat for our fans to see a legend like No. 9 at the Allstate Arena on Dec. 17. If this works out, I may have to give Guy Lafleur, Glenn Hall and Gordie Howe a buzz.”

The day before Thanksgiving and I'm at a hockey game alone - Carol is at home getting ready for tomorrow.

Before the game we were all talking about a sheet that was included with all of the media packages - MEDIA ALERT - WOLVES TO ANNOUNCE MAJOR SIGNING FRIDAY NOVEMBER 25 9:45 AM. What the hell was that going to be about?

The game started smooth - we had the same ref as Saturday - Scott Hoberg - who didn't call anything and just let the guys play. Tonight - different story.

At 15:21 into the First, we're winning 1 to nothing when an altercation happened against the boards on our side (boarding). Next thing we know, a couple of fights broke out. Now, to all of us in the crowd (OK, not-so-crowd - 6,612) this was just a fight - nothing odd, nothing malicious, nothing to write home about. Hoberg is taking forever calling the penalties. In fact, later, after we had seen the entire off-ice officials that were working in the scoring booth laughing at Hoberg, we found out that Hoberg changed his mind four times.

It doesn't stop there - here's the rest:5 minutes for Fighting and a Game misconduct - Secondary altercation (56(f)); 5 minutes for Fighting and a Game misconduct - Secondary altercation (56(f)); 5 minutes for Fighting; 5 minutes for Fighting and a Game misconduct - Secondary altercation (56(f)); 2 minutes for Boarding, 5 minutes for Fighting and a Game misconduct - Secondary altercation (56(f)).

For the rest of the period and all of the 2nd, it felt like there was always somebody in the Penalty Box. The 3rd started the same way and then everything was fine until the last 4 minutes where there were more odd penalties, nothing near as severe that we had in the First, but this guy would call nothing and then wake-up and start calling things. Very uneven. Total penalty minutes for both teams: 151 minutes

The play is starting to pickup. We just may not finish in last place this year...

But somehow tonight, with a packed house of 14,538 the boys actually won. And, in the First Period, looked pretty good. In fact I thought it looked like we could easily score against Milwaukee. I shouldn't have said that as Milwaukee quickly tied the game. The second period was bad. The third had a great start (which we were looking for to see what the team was made of).

Seems like we have a "goalie-du-jour", with goalies being signed, sent up, sent down, and released. It's a revolving door. Brad said that that last night the goalie (same as tonight Tuomas Tarkki) had his first AHL game - and was throwing-up in the locker room ahead of the game.

The big comment among the "regulars": "Who are these guys?" It's such a brand new team with new faces every week - it's hard to root for guys you don't know.

A year has passed and we're back at the Allstate Arena for some AHL Hockey action.

Sorry. Not ready for this - baseball is still going on, my team is really into it, and hockey... can wait for all I care.

The game seemed "foreign". We don't have a single goalie we had before. Most of these guys have never played with us. Our new captain - Derek MacKenzie (Steve Maltais is gone - rumors fly - looking at Europe? showed up to camp way out of shape? retired?) - breaks his ankle sliding into a goalpost in the first.

Still don't have a powerplay - how many years will this go on? - Just feels like there wasn't enough practice time with the members of the final team to iron passing and just plain fundamentals.

The training facility is literally just blocks away from our house - how could we not go? Carol and I went to the Hoffman Estates Park District Ice Rinks to watch the first Chicago Wolves pre-season game there. Of the other venues that the Wolves have used, this is probably the smallest seating capacity. But, heck, $6 for a ticket? How about the $1 for a small Coke? You can't pass this up. And it's our first look a the Peoria Rivermen who are new to the AHL this year.

Well, other than 3 guys that I remember from last year, NO ONE ELSE has been on the team before, so it's a little daunting trying to figure out how everyone plays. First thing you notice this year is lack of size. We used to have a bunch of tall guys - not any more. Lots of fights tonight (the teams met for the first time this past Saturday). Play is sloppy, passing is still poor, the power play still doesn't exist.

The Philadelphia Phantoms swept the Wolves, 4-games-to-0 last Friday, in front of 20,103 fans, the largest crowd in American Hockey League playoff history. Chicago (12-6) was swept for just the third time in its 11-year postseason history. The Wolves, who lost by more than one goal for the first time this postseason, managed just four goals in the four games, the fewest in a four-game playoff series in franchise history.

Sad, very sad. I mean, the Wolves had to be made of something to claw their way to the top of the West Conference, only to be handily swept in the finals. They were significantly outplayed. It was like there was a totally different team out there for the finals.

So, on the plus side, the Wolves have been in the playoffs every single year of their 11 year existence. They've been to the finals in 5 of those 11 (.450!) and have won 3 of them. That, my friends, is not a shabby performance for the franchise.

The First Period looked like Thursday night. Bad blood, dirty hits, no scoring. We scored first in the 2nd, but Philly scored 10 minutes later. Then, in the 3rd, the whole tempo changed. We stayed in their zone, we pressured them the entire time. I started feeling better about our chances. Then came the overtime... and it was much of the same. Hardly any penalties at all, the time flew. We outshot them 14 to 2, keeping up the pressure. Then came the 2nd overtime, and we lost 3:50 into the period.

Now we're down 0-2 going to Philadelphia.

I have this bad, sinking feeling that we've seen the last of hockey this season.

When it comes to professional hockey this season, The Calder Cup becomes the most important trophy. Without the NHL, without the Stanley Cup, THIS series is the be-all and end-all of hockey this year.

And we're in it.

It was a WONDERFUL 1st period - high intensity, lots of shooting. The the 2nd period rolled around and some other team replaced the Wolves on the ice. They looked... rusty? Tired? Confused? Out played? Yes, all of the above.

Lots of chippy plays. Going to be intense. I don't like losing the first game. At home. In fact, I'm concerned.

And we win the West Division on go on to the Western Conference Final!

It was a tense game. The energy was way up in the 1st, but we weren't getting anywhere. We were shooting and came up empty. Derek McKenzie had 3 shots on goal in about 5 seconds, all accurate, 1 going off the post and still nothing. The Ducks scored in the 2nd and it looked like we weren't going to get out of this. We finally tied it up 7 minutes into the third and the crowd went nuts. We get the game winner 3:47 left in the 3rd! THEN the crowd went nuttier. The Ducks pull their goalie to try to come back and the Wolves made sure they won with an empty-netter with 23 seconds left.

Then came something that felt embarrassing - the Ducks pulled their goalie again and we scored again with only 4 seconds left.

We didn't really need to do that. It almost felt like the Wolves just took the Duck's heads and shoved their noses in it with that last goal. It's almost like the Wolves woke up and just had to retaliate for not sweeping them earlier in the week. Really, really odd feeling.

Then again - why pull your goalie? Did you really think you can get back into the game?

The teams were just going back and forth all night. Really chippy - lots of checks, lots of just poking and grabbing. No fights tonight, though. In fact, our buddy was only in the box once about 5 minutes into the first. Of course, he was causing hovoc on the ice.

We finally won the game with only 44 seconds left, when Krazy Karl Stewart gingerly tipped-in a pass from his knees. You would have thought it was the Cup finals with the way the crowd (6,017) went nuts.

There was a busload of Cincinnati fans that we only really heard once after they scored. The were actually shocked into silence with the game winning goal.

We had a lot of discussions before the game - who would we prefer to meet this round: Milwaukee or Cincinnati? We've had problems with both teams during the season, but it's obvious to us that Milwaukee was folding, in more ways than one. Even though they had a very good start, they hadn't been playing well recently. There's also the many rumors going around that the team itself was going to fold - if we heard this correctly, ownership had changed hands a year or two due to a death, and the new owners (the children?) aren't interested in continuing. If true, it had to affect the team. If not true, it still may have affected them.

So, anyway, here we are facing the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks. The highlight to look forward to? Our buddy, Zenon Konopka. I still remember the first time we met him on the Utah Grizzlies, but it's nice seeing him with everybody else on Cincy. This meant that we had some fodder for our taunts.

And taunt we did, from the puck drop in the 1st. He was in the Penalty Box in the 2nd. He obviously remembers us. We have a tendency to ratchet-up the taunts when the player starts to act interact. Well, Zenon did and it was like we were getting to him. After his 2-minutes were up, as soon as he stepped onto the ice, we scored (OK, it was one second after his time was up). The entire place laid into him from then on. In the 3rd, while he was in the box for an Unsportsmanlike, we scored again. On the way out, he yelled to us that he was going to score one now. Never did. In fact, I think the coach sat him out a few lines at the end. Guess we did get to him.

Their first goalie - Ilya Bryzgalov gave up 3 goals and was replaced with our former goalie Freddie Cassivi 5 and ahlf minutes into the 2nd. Bryzgalov would drop really quick, and for some reason the 5-Hole would just open-up everytime he went down.

There was some pretty good fights - not big, but very intense. this could be a really dicey series.

The game sucked. The Wolves played tentatively and never appeared as aggressive as the other night. Carol said that "they looked scared". I don't think scared is the correct word, but they sure weren't playing with the same intensity. You could see it by the number of shots. They were always on the defense and just couldn't get it together.

Referee Wes McCauley called an extremely uneven game, which didn't help matters much. There was more than one occasion when I felt the McCauley had to call a penalty, because it was a bit too blatant to let it go, even tough there were other infractions that were close to be as blatant and he never even verbally warned the players. He was terrible. He was taking a beating from the fans who thought he wasn't calling anything, but quite a few hits were clean, though they looked bad. But if a playing just touched an opposer's stick, he would call a "holding the stick" without hesitation. He just wasn't consistent - made you wonder if he got a talking to before the game... a more cynical person would even question if money changed hands, that's how uneven the calls were.

Don't get me wrong - the players lost the game, but score an assist to McCauley.

We're at the wonderful time of the year is sports in Chicago that is the most embarrassing.

Chicago is not known as a Championship town - EXCEPT for this team, the Chicago Wolves. This is only the 11th season that the team has been in existence, and this is the 11th straight post-season appearances for the team. Not very many teams anywhere can say that they have NEVER missed the post-season. In those prior 10 seasons, the Wolves have won the league championship (IHL - Turner Cup, AHL - Calder Cup) three times.

You would think that in a town that has had a drought of championships in baseball, football, most recently basketball, and even professional hockey, that people would be clamoring to get tickets for playoff games.

Tonight's attendance: 2,411

The sorry thing is - that's pretty much average for a weekday playoff game for the Wolves. We've been at games that the attendance was half that. I don't get it.

Anyway, good, hard fought game that referee Scott Hoberg let get way out of control, winding up with mêlée's throughout the third peroid.

The regular season is over. Playoffs start Tuesday. 15,277 people packed the place so damn tight it was hard to move around. Then again, it was a Fan Appreciation day and the Dog Adoption day, and Shirt of Their Back day... too many damn things scheduled at once. To top it off, hardly any of our extended family was there, so it felt odd ending the season with hardly any of our friends.

Nah, not going to happen tonight. The place is packed - 15,342 - and the fans are into it, but something's wrong with the boys. They got outplayed at a time when they didn't need a bad showing.

Four unanswered goals. I think that just about summarizes it. Oh, and we outshot them 45-27. Not our night.

The St. Patrick's Jersey auction ended tonight - looks like all of the jerseys went for about $1,100 to $1,800 each - with a few over that. How can a "normal, everyday average fan" supposed to partake in this?

the Wolves had on their green St. Patrick's Day jerseys - that are sure to be the annual hot item in the silent auction as usual after Saturday's game. It was really frustrating to watch tonight. Edmonton's goaltender - Mike Morrison - was all over the damn place. Anytime a shot was taken, he'd commit early, go down early, get drawn out, get drawn to the side - and we had NOBODY camped-out in front to get it past him. Unbelievable - you should have SEEN the holes we saw! it just led to another see-saw night that made us look like we were struggling. Hell, we tied the game with 21 seconds to play!

Not much to say about tonight's game - hell, there's only one goal (fortunately, it was ours). the bug deal tonight (other than the Duffel Bag promotion and Hawgie's Doggies having the best looking puppy up for adoption - the first to go tonight - was the disappointing absence of Manitoba's' Jimmy Roy. (Healthy Scratch). It's just always fun. (Sometimes, even more fun.) But not tonight.

Jeff Smith called the game again today and just like yesterday, he let the teams play and kept he calls down. Except, he sure didn't do the right thing in the 3rd period.

The energy isn't the same as yesterday, but they crowd is one of the largest of the season - 14,912.

The Wolves were up 3-0 in the 3rd when the Aeros had 2 goals within 7 seconds of each other against. Michael Garnett was in goal again, and everybody looked a bit shook-up. The teams combined for six second-period goals, including five in a span of 4:39. I guess that's enough to shake-up everybody. (One of these goals was by Steve Maltais - it was his 450th regular season goal as a member of the Chicago Wolves.)

It got REAL UGLY in the 3rd.

Houston's Mark Cullen scored a goal at 9:54 in the 3rd, tyeing the game 4-4. It shouldn't have counted. As he shot, Michael Garnett opened up and reached to glove-it with his left hand. At the same time, Kirby Law charges the net off-balance and - with his skate blade - hits Garnett in the face, popping-off his helmet and slashing him in the mouth. It happened so fast, all anybody saw was the helmet flying and Garnett flying face-first onto the ice. He laid there and everybody thought he was just pissed at himself for missing the shot. The TV cameras had a closeup of him on the ice, when all of a sudden you see blood flowing out his mouth onto the ice. The place went crazy. Jeff Smith finally calls a penalty against Law - a 5 minute major for Charging (which, somehow, also got spun-up to a Game Misconduct) - but ALLOWS THE GOAL.Kari Lehtonen had to step-in and finish the game for Garnett. I still haven't heard what happened to him.

The game started with a moment of silence for Tim Breslin, a former player with the Wolves, who died from a form of cancer I had NEVER heard of: he died last Wednesday night due to complications from appendiceal cancer - yes, a malignancy of the appendix. He was diagnosed in late November of 2004. He was a local guy and fan favorite. Everybody knew him. So, it was a sad beginning of the night.

But, OH WHAT A GAME!

Milwaukee has been a major problem for us this year, but tonight something was different. The energy was up for both teams. It was like watching a post-season game! The intensity was great, a lot of up and down play, hard hitting...

The referee - Jeff Smith - wasn't calling anything. Which you would think is bad, but the key is he was consistent, and that's all you can ask for in a ref. The crowd was really going after him when he wouldn't call something but you could see that he just wasn't calling anything.

Well, until the 3rd. With only 44 seconds left and the game tied 4-4, he called Brad Larsen for interference. It was a controversial call, because the ref actually DIDN'T call it - one of the linesmen did (I think it was Jay Jacobs). Linesmen can't call a penalty unless it's a major. In this case, there was a "skirmish" between former Wolf Simon Gamache and Steve Maltais right between the two benches as they were leaving the ice. Brad Larsen was on the bench and grabbed Simon Gamache. So, it turns out that this is another case that a linesman can actually call a penalty.

We made it though the 3rd, but that also meant it was 4-on-3 for 1:16 into the 5-minute overtime period.

Turns out that the Wolves survive that and overtime ends in a tie. It's been a couple of years since we saw a Shootout (due to rule changes), but that's what we were headed for. The Wolves outscore Milwaukee 2-1 in the shootout and WIN.

Michael Garnett was in goal tonight because Kari Lehtonen has had strep. Garnett has been in net for the 2 Shootout Wins the Wolves have had this year.

Pretty damn exciting and the best game we have seen in a long, long time.

Cleveland is 6 games under .500. We should have rolled-over them. Instead, what we're against is a team with no veterans and 10 rookies on the roster. So what? These guys were fast. No great, just fast. Oh, and they shoot. US? Well, think S-L-O-W and passing a lot, and not well, mind you. there was absolutely nothing good that came out of this.

The Hoffman Estates Park District Community Center Ice Arenas had their official ribbon cutting ceremony today. Carol and I went over there to check it out. It was important to us because: 1) it's literally just blocks away from our house (but it's not THAT close to walk it), and 2) it is the official practice facility for the Chicago Wolves!

The place is gorgeous with two full-size rinks. It was packed - there was a time when both rinks were open to open skate and they ran out of rental skates. There were Wolves players available for autographs and out on the ice skating with the guests. The concession stand was in full swing.

I was able to see the actual ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Park District people, the mayor, and the Wolves executives.

Almost 9 minutes into the game, Hamilton scores two goals within 19 seconds. 25 seconds later, the Wolves wake up and score, then score a minute later and score two minutes after that. Steve Maltais got his 600th goal of his professional career - he's only one away from scoring 450 just for the Wolves.

9:48 into the second, a Bulldog player, while attempting to score, apparently got too close to goalie Kari Lehtonen, and Kari popped him. This led to a mêlée in front of the net, leading to 9 penalties. The Wolves - because they are on a 4-minute power-kill, only get 5 shots in the 2nd. In the 3rd, the Wolves don't get a shot off for at least half the period. The Bulldogs tie it, go up by one, and then get two empty net goals, while the Wolves only manage 5 shots.

Things happened so quickly that you couldn't look away or even blink.

Things sucked. What's with our shooting? How can you win if you don't shoot? (We're out-shot 37-20).

Only our second game we attended since October 30th! Most of it was scheduling, and then we had to miss a few games due to other commitments (oh, like being in Las Vegas for a week - we missed 3 games just because of that).

Since we've been gone (December 12 was the last time we were here), the rear-screen projection systems in the scoreboard over center ice were replaced with matrix boards. Since the lighting was changed in here, you couldn't see anything on the video boards. Now, it's very bright - though the resolution sucks a bit. Hey, it's the minor league - can't afford to get the real good stuff.

This week the Wolves were wearing special Armed Forces jerseys that are being sold at silent auction today. (I actually bid on one... last time I looked the jersey was up to $1,200 - waaaaayyyy out of my financial reach.) When I heard about this, I thought the jerseys would be in the olive-green cammo, but they were in the beige cammo and it actually looked better (perhaps the green would be too close to the annual St. Patrick's jersey auction coming up in March).

It was good to see the boys playing pretty well. Being tied for First Place in the division is a good thing.

I just wish that when they're on a power play that they'd stop this god-awful passing drill and just shoot the damn puck!

This is the first game we've been to in over a month. On top of that, due to other conflicts, we're going to miss about 4 more games over the next month and a half. Everyone around us kept asking where we've been.

It's nice to be missed.

The team has been playing much better lately. They're not giving up and quite a few games go into overtime.

Tonight - well, it was a bit lackluster. We had the lead at one point 2-1 but just couldn't get a break.

The referee was called "controversial" by play-by-play man Judd Sirrot. It was Harry Dumas and apparently during the playoff last year, he called 19 (or was it 16?) power play penalties against the Wolves during one game. Gee - it was against Milwaukee, too.

I was watching the warmups, paying attention to the Cincinnati team and realized that there was a whole bunch of "protaganists" on that team this year.

First we have our own Kurtis Foster who was with the Wolves for the last 3 seasons and set a record for the fastest slapshot during an AHL All-Star Game (101 mph!). Now, he left because of a trade. The person I was surprised to see was Goaltender Frederic Cassivi who was also with the Wolves for 3 years. I have no idea how he got there. Then we had our regular protaganist Sheldon Brookbank, and the player with one of our favorite names - Cory Pecker. The absolute surprise for us was former Utah Grizzly Zenon Konopka! Ah yes, who could forget that game last season...

The Ducks score first, only 45 seconds into the game. It was all downhill from there. It's the typical early-season don't know how to play together issues. That, and we aren't shooting. Oh, and Kari Lehtonen not seeing some shots.

Hell of a lot of penalties, thanks to Referee Justin St. Pierre. Yes, most were good calls, but he did have a bunch of questionables.

Well, I knew it was going to be an odd night as soon as we walked into the Allstate Arena. As we walked down the stairs to our seats, I said to Carol, "Hey, they've got new uniforms." (referring to Houston). Caro looked up and ... fell down the stairs, It was all in slow motion and I've seen this a hundred times before - she has bad ankles, so seeing her rolling down the stairs just wasn't surprising to me. It WAS surprising to everyone else around us, so a lot of people came running, Carol was and is fine - her ankle hurts a bit and her knee where she hit the concrete, but she's fine.

Who didn't look fine was our goaltender Kari Lehtonen. He just isn't seeing the puck well. Who scored our first two goals? Steve Maltais, which means that as of the first 15 minutes of this game, Maltais scored the only goals (5) for this team this season.

The crowd was back down to what would be normal for a Wednesday night - 3,428. None of us seemed to know how the game was going to end. Kari was called for throwing his stick at the puck (which the replays showed he didn't) which game Houston a Penalty Shot that they scored on. It ended by Cory Larose breaking the 4-4 tie in overtime.

It looks like the standard "don't know what the team is doing at the beginning of the season" time.

Home Opener for the Chicago Wolves. It was nice seeing all of our Hockey Buddies again. Other than the changes on the ice for new rules (red lines behind the nets showing areas that the goalies are restricted from entering and the huge 24" blue lines), the only other changes to the Allstate Arena are new matrix boards and new (brighter) lighting.

14,877 were there for the Home Opener. We kind of expected that due to the normal draw the Wolves have plus the NHL fans that don't have any hockey to watch, along with the people that took-up the Wolves offers for Season Tickets based on the lockout actually happening.

We looked bad out there. Who looked the worse? Our phenom goalie Kari Lehtonen who gave up 4 goals on 22 shots. He significantly misplayed at least one if not two of the goals and I don't think he saw they others at all. Not like him.

We lost up on Milwaukee last night 4-2. The man who had the two goals up there and our only goal tonight was Steve Maltais. Pathetic - were was everybody else? Oh, and we out-shot the Griffins 47-29. We have never opened the season 0-2.

Not a good start.

Got under the skin of at least one Griffin player - Darryl Bootland - who not only reacted to our taunts, but also flipped us off from the Penalty Box. Sweet.

So G4TECHTV (that crappy Comcast-owned network that took my beloved TechTV a stripped it clean of it's gadgetry and tech coolness) is simulating the entire NHL season and broadcasting the results in a 3-minute highlight show nightly.

It's Opening Night in the NHL tonight. Or it was supposed to be. No Opening Night. Then again, there hasn't been any training camps or any exhibition games either. The owners have locked-out the players in a labor dispute.

The NHLPA made its first proposal in 15 months to NHL negotiators Sept. 9 in Toronto. it was immediately rejected and there hasn't been any movement since, and there's been rumors of the entire NHL season being lost.

All I know is that it probably means more people going to the Wolves games that we have to deal with. Our opening night is this Saturday!

Carol and I went to a Chicago Wolves preseason game at a local ice rink. It was nice seeing the ol' boys again. Somehow, this year it seems easier for me to make the transition from watching baseball to watching hockey. I was happy to see Kari Lehtonen with us again, even though I'm sure it's because of the lockout so that he can get more time in the net. We've got a few really tall guys this year, like rookie Lane Manson who is listed as 6' 9", along with Brian Sipotz who is listed as 6' 7". Hopefully, they will stay with the team and contribute. That's the problem with preseason - you just don't know who you've got on the team and you try not to get too attached to them because they could be gone in a week. Speaking of a week, opening night is a week from this Saturday. They better work on the Power Play before then...

Not much to say here... the teams played the same as they played all series. The Wolves just didn't know what the hell they were doing. Those 12 days that they had off between the series killed them. Lot all of their passing prowess.

So, it's over. After 2 friggin' overtimes, we lose at home. There was a sense of anger and loss after all of this. The ref didn't call a single penalty in the 1st overtime - and even though it really pissed-off the fans, you just got to let the guys play...

I wanted to team to do well this year. Hell, we were in the playoff like we should have been, but I feel... relieved.

So long boys - see you in September...

On the way out, I ducked back in to get one last shot of the arena.

They were playing an acoustic cover of Elton John's Daniel. I heard: "Lord I miss Daniel... Oh, I miss him so much..."

The Wolves suck. We are down in this series 2-1 and the game that we did win... I couldn't tell you how we did it. Take a look at the Gamesheet from Saturday's game. The ref was Harry Dumas, who called 38 penalties of 122 minutes (87 minutes on 26 infractions were against us). He did some other odd - possibly illegal - things like trying to use off-ice officials to verify stick infractions (which the on-ice people should do). He called 3 game misconducts (one against Coach Anderson) and a Match Penalty against Mike Weaver (which means he doesn't play tonight). Apparently Mr. Dumas asked for a police escort home.

So, tonight we have our other "favorite" ref - Dan O'Rourke. He's not a problem tonight.

Tonight, the problem was The Wolves. They look tired. They can't keep up. There's just no way in hell to keep Milwaukee outside our zone. How the hell is Kari Lehtonen supposed to stop all of the 45 shots coming at him? You've got to ask - what the hell are there 45 shots to begin with?

We're being outplayed. We're down 3-1 in the series and it goes to Milwaukee on Wednesday.

It was an odd omen - during the pregame introductions Skates (the Wolves' mascot) for the first time in years, slipped and fell while trying to skate to a stop at center ice before letting out his howl. We knew this was going to be an odd night.

It only took the Wolves 1:46 to score their first goal and the team just started to pick-up from there. By 10:46 into the first, we were up 3-0 and Grand rapids had pulled their starting goalie Joey MacDonald for Marc Lamothe. We ended the first 4-0. At 10:57 in the second, we were up 7-0 after Lamothe gave up 2 goals within 30 seconds, and the Griffins decided to put MacDonald back in net. The 4,916 people in the place were really going nuts by then.

Derek MacKenzie had a Hat Trick and we were up 8-0. Kari Lehtonen was only 4 minutes and 59 seconds away from a shutout when the griffins finally scored a goal. They were able to sneak another one in a little later, but there was no way they were going to catch-up.

So, a year after being swept in the Western Conference semifinals by the Griffins, the Wolves get some payback.

Well, it's Post Season time again! And, as is typical for our post-season games, there were only 2,831 people on hand. This is pretty normal - the Wolves have been unable to do any Group Sales because the dates are so unknown. It was still a loud crowd, The Griffins struck first, but the boys never let it get out of hand. In fact, they've been playing really well for weeks. There's been a playoff atmosphere at the Allstate Arena for weeks.

Yep, it's The Return of The King - Wolves style. Kari Lehtonen came back from his first visit to Atlanta. In his 4 games there, he was 4-0-0 with a 1.26 Goals Against Average and 95.3% Save Percentage, and notched his first NHL Shutout. There's no way in hell we're going to see him next year - he's just too damn good. To top it off, watching in the stands is another one of our former goaltenders who's now also playing for Atlanta - Pasi Nurminen. The game started well, with the Wolves scoring 2 in the First. Then a former Wolves player - Kamil Piros scored against Kari. At the end of the first came a taked-down fight with crazy Karl Stewart which got him a Game Misconduct (Rule 56(a)). Things got tense during the game and the teams were tied 3-3 in the third. Kari was good, but... how do you go from that stellar NHL debut to this??? The crowd really got into it - it is still that great Playoff atmosphere as we struggle to get a better position for the playoffs. Then Steve Maltais scored a powerplay goal with 6.7 seconds left in the game.

Tonight was Military Night at the game. All the branches of the Armed Forces had tables setup around the arena to give away trinkets, but also boost recruiting. I only mention this because, after I went upstairs to the balcony to get a picture of the Navy Band (which only played before the warmups and then disappeared), as I came down the stairs, I, well, missed the last step and wound up falling to the floor and almost wiping-out an Air Force table. Screwed-up my right ankle pretty bad - the same one I screwed-up a few years ago when I fell at the O'Hare Metra station before a Wolves game (long story there). So, anyway, I watched the game in pain...

This was playoff-style hockey tonight. The Griffins have been slipping lately (we're in 3rd behind them - Milwaukee is in 1st). We beat them last night in Michigan, so things were a bit tense on the ice.

Saw something that I've never seen before in a hockey game. Stephen Baby shoots the puck high into the Griffins net, drops down and bounces off the left post. The goal judge (Bob Lilla) lights the light, Fireworks go off, siren sounds, crowd goes nuts (13,327, BTW)... but the ref waves it off and allows play to go on for another 30 seconds until the play is whistled dead (i can't remember why.. offside maybe?). The ref goes off to confer with the goal judge and allows the goal! Now, the fans are confused and the Griffins players go nuts with three of them charging the glass in front of the goal judge, screaming their heads off.

The play was pretty intense all throughout the game. Yes, it had the feel of playoffs. And now, with the win, we're only 2 points behind the Griffins with 4 more games to go.

Carol & I stayed a little while after the game to see something the Wolves do every once in a while - open up the ice for an hour of open skating (you have to bring your own skates). It takes way too long to get everything going (Zamboni the ice, get everyone to sign waivers, etc) and - as a spectator - a bit boring. But we watched a little and finally left.

I wasn't feeling too excited about this team's chances this year - until today's game. If they could just keep their focus and play a full 60 minutes...

What a lousy game... we were tied 1-1 into the third when Utah scored 3 goals in 1 minute 43 seconds. *ouch* Even though we lost, the Wolves became the third team to clinch a berth in the Calder Cup 2004 Playoffs (all three teams are from the old IHL).

This was going to be a fun night for the fans. A little bit of history here...

First off, the group that sits in our general area have an unofficial name - The Penalty Box Police. The name partially comes from the fact that we do have a bunch of cops that sit around us, but it's also because we ploce the penalty box of the visiting team. We make sure that we try to get under the skin of any opposing player in the box. It always start with a chant - (for example, let's say Nick Naumenko had a penalty - and he had quite a few tonight. The group would chant: "Nau-men-ko! Nau-men-ko! Nau-men-ko! You Suck!".) OK, it's not very original (here's a sample of the chant - the audio isn't as good as it could be), but it's just our way of saying "Howdy!". The more you show up in the box, the louder and more boisterous we get. The biggest mistake is to acknowledge our existence, because we'll just turn up the taunting.

Last week, Utah was in town and the two teams had the luck of getting ol' #42 O'Rourke as a referee. This guy always blows calls and usually doesn't control a game too well. There was a period of time last week when Utah had 5 guys in the Penalty Box at the same time.

One of these guys was Zenon Konopka. I guess the guys were really after him in particular (he was in the box and made the mistake of recognizing us). The whole Allstate Arena went after this guy. First, groups of people around the stadium took turns chanting "You Suck!" at him, eventually the entire place did it together.

Well, everyone in our group was making sure they were going to be at the game tonight, ready to focus on Konopka.

The problem happened last night. Utah played Milwaukee and let's just say there was an awful lot of fighting. Our "friend" Konopka got suspended for one game. He didn't dress for today's game.

I've never seen so many people bummed out for a visiting player not to show up. Ryan, who sat in front of us, even made a "Konopka Sucks" shirt for the occasion.

Well, we got a little reprieve when Sockboy (Bill) came over to tell us that Konopka was in the seats, watching the game. Sure enough, we found him. So, we coordinated chants between both the north & south sides of the stadium to go after the guy. And, of course, he recognized us wuth a wave.

We find out during the 1st intermission, that even the AHL officials knew about us, Ryan's shirt, and Konopka being in the stands. During the 2nd Period, Ryan decides to go over to him and get the shirt autographed.

It turned out fine. Both Konopka and Justin Cox (who didn't play because of a thumb injury, probably from one of the fights last night) where really nice guys. The had a great conversation, and said to Ryan (and Brad who was with them) "Now, when we walk away, it's war!"

What a great attitude to take, having a great time together but realizing that there's a game on and alliances and allegiances must be kept.

Of course, when everybody was back in their seats, we had to chant one last time...

It was also the last night of the St. Patrick's Day Jersey Auction that I talked about a few days ago. Well, as usual, most jerseys went for around $1,00-$1,200, one or two in th $800-$900 range and a few in the $1,200-$2,000 range. Again, great for the charity, absolutely sucky for the fans who will never get a jersey (and there are a ton of people that wear jerseys to these games).

Wow, a nice physical game. Not fighting-physical, just fast, hard-checking physical. Guys were finally finishing their checks, they were shooting (the Wolves had out-shot their opponents in only 20 games this year, and out-shot the Barons 38-27), they stayed on the attack and actually gave Michael Garnett some defense. Hell, it was 4-0 10 minutes into the 3rd period, when, like too often in other games of late, we let the opponents back into the game. (Kari Lehtonen was called-up to the NHL for the first time to see some real shooting. He's on the playoff roster, so we'll see him again) Nice crowd, too - 10,438.

It's time for the Annual St. Patrick's Day Jersey Auction - that little out-of-control fundraiser that regular fans just can't afford. Great for the charity (I think it's Easter Seals), bad for the fans that can't afford to get involved. Example: The auction runs for three games (tonight, tomorrow, and Wednesday - St. Patrick's Day). Before the game started tonight, the bid for Steve Maltais' jersey was at $2,000. What Regular Joe Fan can afford that???

Ouch. We were outplayed tonight. We were up 3-1 at the end of 2 Periods, and before you know it, we lose the game 5-3. It was good old hockey. A cleanly fought game, no shoving grabbing, just hard checks and strong skating.

I don't know what was going on, but there were 14,112 people there tonight. That's great for the team, bad for us. We're on the aisle at center ice. The row has 28 seats, so people have to pass us every time they want something to eat or drink or ... whatever. And since they're usually group sales people, they are there to socialize and have absolutely no concept about "Wait For The Whistle" - wait for stoppage of play before you get up and disturb everyone around you!

UGLY GAME. At 3:12 into the first, the first fight came. It was a doozy, with 3 game misconducts (one of their guys - Jason Marshall - got 2 minutes for Instigating (a popular one tonight), 5 for fighting, 10 minute misconduct (fighting - instigator) and a game misconduct (abuse of Officials). That'll give you the tone of the whole game. The Aeros had 77 minutes of penalties (the Wolves had 35). Yes we dominated, but Houston out-shot us 37-28. Steve Maltais had a Hat Trick, only the second one the team has had this season.

Tonight was the annual Chicago Wolves Season Ticketholder Party, but instead of holding it at the Allstate Arena like the usually do, it was held at Gameworks in Schaumburg (we were happy - Gameworks is much closer to home!). The problem with Gameworks, though, is that it's a much smaller venue. Every machine and game in the house was busy (it was all free while we were there), but it was hard to maneuver around - the lines for the buffet upstairs were huge, not to mention the lines for player autographs were much worse and much slower). We found out there was a second buffet in - of all places - the restaurant and hardly anybody was in there. It was an OK time, but it was quite a bit different and I'm not sure if it was "better" or not. I could tell by our friends John and Carol that it might not appeal to the "older demographic" - crowded, noisy, multiple floors...

Well, it's time for the Manitoba Moose. I look forward to these games for two reasons - 1) singing "O, Canada" (best national anthem ever), and 2) Riding Jimmy Roy. Historically, the group of regulars in our section and the one across the aisle don't think much of this gut. He's a career minor league player, never spending a single minute in the NHL. He's an aggressive player who isn't opposed to taking dives or antagonizing opposing players. He tends to spend quite a bit of time in the penalty box (at least during our games) and when he does, he's ours. By taunting him, we have been able to take him out of his game, causing more problems for him and his team. First penalty tonight (at 6:33 in the 1st for roughing - big surprise), as we layed into him, he flipped us off, which, off course, just feeds us. It's something that entertains us all game, every game against Manitoba.

Kari Lehtonen has been day-to-day since hitting the crossbar in Wednesday's dame, so the team called-up Michael Garnett. He gave up the first goal of the game but did a pretty good job the rest of the way. The Wolves, on the other hand, out-shot the Moose 41-20 and got 5 goals past Johan Hedberg, who also wasn't "in the game", complaining about one goal and getting a Roughing penalty. (It's always a physical game when these two teams meet.) Three of our goals were on Power Plays, while Manitoba's only goal was shorthanded (Damn.)

As a side note - we didn't really miss Steve Maltais, who was "scratched" because of a Deliberate Injury Match Penalty in last night's game.

Back at the Allstate Arena for the Wolves game. It's a little odd - hardly any of the "regulars" were here for the game. Today was the first day of this year's first Jersey Auction for charity. The jersey's are a special 10th Anniversary jersey, that I think looks really sharp (work with black pants and black socks). The auction, however, is already a little out of hand. The rumour is that our rookie goalie Kari Lehtonen has the potential to be the next Dominik Hasek, so the bidding in the First Intermission is already up to $1,500 and the auction doesn't end for two more games.

Though it was weird being at the game without Carol, and my jersey, and without my radio to litsen to Judd, I guess I'm glad Carol wasn't there. There was a whole group of very youing kids sitting right in front of us, with parents that didn't care that there kids were sitting on top of the seats, blocking everyone's view, not to mention continually moving around. The parents didn't undertsand the whole "Wait For The Whistle" concept to not stand up during play. It would have drove Carol absolutely nuts. Oh, and I had the young mother of the group sitting in front of me with her thong showing everytime she leaned forward to talk to the kids. Pull up your pants and pull down that sweater, already - it's a friggin' hockey game!

The group of people across the aisle weren't much better - two young couples that were absolutely loaded by the end of the night. The two women bought these oversized foam rubber Wolves claws that are sold at the arena. There were actually mock-clawing each other... as well as people they didn't know in the row in front of them... it was just weird. One of the guys tried to out-whistle the Joey & Laura's horns, trying to get louder as they blew harder, which of course, no one around them wanted to hear. It was so weird, that Joey & Laura (who were sitting behind them) actually sat next to me for the 3rd Period to get away from them.

The game itself was a mess, just like the last time we played them. The Baby Leafs are a tough, scrappy and maybe even a little dirty team. Things got physical early, but it just got stranger through the game. We were leading 2-0 after the 1st, but late in the 2nd, somebody from St. John's hip checked Kari Lehtonen who got thrown backwards and hit the back of his head on the crossbar. He got pretty shook-up, but stayed in the game. He never came out for the 3rd Period, and was replaced by Freddie Cassivi. Later in the 3rd, Mikael Tellqvist came way out of the crease to play the puck and a charging and Karl Stewart checked him, sending his helmet flying and him to the ice - and Stewart gets called for Interference. Things went steadily downhill from there, with a lot more fights. We lost the lead and the game was tied 3-3. The Baby Leafs spent way the hell too much time in our zone, just peppering whoever was in the net. We get through the Overtime Period with a tie, even though we were out-shot 50-35.

Boy, that game sucked. There was no flow to the game, just a lot of bad passes stealing, breaking up shots, back and forth, up and down the ice. It was actually... boring. There were a lot of people there - 11,828 (the largest of the season) - and they seemed to have all been sitting in our row. Note to people going to a hockey game for the first time: understand the concept of "Wait For The Whistle". DO NOT get up to go get a beer, some food, or go to the bathroom while play is going on. It's 1) inconsiderate for everyone that you have to disturb to get out of your row 2) dangerous since you will be blocking the vision of those around you who may not see a flying puck coming at them. Be considerate, watch the friggin' game and keep your socializing to a minimum.

That being said, the game still sucked. It's the first time we lost in six games at home.

It's been a month since we've been to a hockey game. Since then, the boys haven't played very well, until their win last night.

It's been a little odd going to the games lately. Most of the people that sit around us haven't been coming regularly. Chelby & Damian don't come to the games anymore. The crowd seems to be less and less "regulars" and more and more Group Sales. There aren't any giveaways at the doors anymore - in prior years almost every game had something given away. Every game is now broadcast on Comcast cable, but they didn't sign a radio contract with anybody, so If you can't listen over the Internet, you're S.O.L. Yesterday they started using a very low power AM transmitter inside the arena to broadcast the games to anybody with a radio inside (quality sucks and you can't hear it if you're going to get something to eat or drink). I don't know - the games just don't feel the same...

I'm thinking Utah was thinking the same thing. They lost an engine while still on the tarmac in Salt Lake City. They didn't get to the arena until 4:30 for the 7pm game.

That being said, we scored in the first and didn't score again until the 3rd and then it was like they smelled blood in the water. We almost had another goal when Utah goalie Mike Smith blocked a shot, but it went straight up into the air behind him, landed on the ice and almost crossed the line before it was dug-out by some Utah players. Smith never saw it. Kari Lehtonen got his first professional shutout.

Carol was ringing her cowbell quite a bit. A lady in the group sitting next to us wanted to ring the bell, so Carol gave it to her. As soon as the bell left Carol's hands, we scored. Needless to say, the bell got a workout. So much so, that a little girl three rows in front of us was turning around to tell Carol to stop ringing her bell. Did she stop? of course not!

It seems like we haven't been there in a while, but we were back at the Allstate Arena to see the first game (here) against the St. John's Maple Leafs. There must be some bad blood left over from their last meeting up on Canada because the first period was awfully physical. There was a total of 17 penalties in the first period. Both teams were physical and actually pretty evenly matched. By the time the third period came around, though, it looked like the Wolves were getting tired. We actually had two Power Play goals tonight, as well as an Empty Net-er.

With only 27 seconds left in the game, Karl Stewart got into a good fight (that was brewing all night) and wound up getting a Match Penalty for Attempt to Injure. Yeow. And then the Baby Leaf's Kris Newburydoesn't get a penalty for going over the top of the refs to go after Stewart. What a mess.

So, we get to the game at the very start of the 2nd Period (more on that in another post) and we're already losing 2-1. Kari Lehtonen doesn't look as good as the last time we saw him. The team just doesn't feel like they're working together. It just feels odd. Speaking of odd - Syracuse has Pauli Levokari who used to be on the Wolves last season (for about 6 games). The guy is big - 6' 5". Coach gets one of our players to talk to the ref and say they believe Levokari's stick is too long. The ref takes the stick, measures it and - sure enough - it's too long and Levokari gets 2 minutes for Illegal Stick. Interesting move. While he was in the box, we scored, but it wasn't enough - we lose 4-3.

Wow - 12,818 tonight for the hockey game. By 11:17 into the first period, we're losing 3-0. Freddie Cassivi looks like a sieve. What the hell is going on here? We just had to wait another 5 minutes and the Wolves score two goals within 38 seconds. We wound-up scoring 4 unanswered goals and win 4-3. The shots are starting to come up, even though we only out-shot them 35-32.

Back at the Allstate Arena tonight for the first-ever meeting of the Chicago Wolves and the... Toronto Roadrunners? Apparently the management group used to be from the Phoenix Roadrunners in the old IHL (I remember them!), they just didn't change the team name. Like there's roadrunners in Toronto... Impressive team... I think. It was really hard to tell because we were getting out-shot (41 to 20) and they were always in our zone. Now, I don't know if that's because of their aggressiveness, or perhaps the Wolves are slipping on defense. We got our first chance to see our rookie goalie phenom - Kari Lehtonen. He stopped almost everything, and he did it so effortlessly. He always saw the puck, his reflexes look way good, and, like I said, when he made a save, there was no panic, just a a nice fluid movement. Remarkable. Had some fighting in the game, like these teams have seen each other before. They look good. We'll have to keep an eye on them.

But those who oppose the project, many of whom live adjacent to where the skating rink would be located, vowed to form a political action committee.

"It's not all over," said Tom Rehwald, one of the residents spearheading the opposition.

Rehwald and his wife, Rae Ann, said their next move is to form a group to replace park and village board members who supported the project.

"The community has said the Blackhawk (Community Center) location of this project is inappropriate," Rae Ann Rehwald said.

She and others contend the building is too large for the site and that the project will add too much traffic and noise.

"(It will be a) harmful impact on the neighbors. Then why would you vote in favor of these ice rinks?" she asked. "What about the negative emotional and stress impact on the community?"

At its meeting tonight, the park district board is expected to approve bids for mass grading of the site, utilities and the refrigeration system, said park district Director Dean Bostrom.

Work is officially expected to begin Wednesday. Within the week, expect to see construction fencing go up and some light polls come down. Mass grading equipment is expected on the site Monday, Bostrom said.

The project will continue through winter and is expected to be open by September 2004.

The park board is proposing the $12.5 million project in partnership with the Wolves. The facility is to be built at the Blackhawk Community Center at 1685 W. Higgins Road.

The 90,000-square-foot addition is proposed for the 35,000-square-foot facility. The addition will be located on the southwest corner of the property, adjacent to the community center.

The dual NHL-sized ice-skating rinks will accommodate 785 spectators, as opposed to the 900 seats that were originally proposed, with 525 seats in the competition rink and 260 in the recreation rink. Nine hockey and figure skating locker rooms will be built, along with a locker room for the Wolves. There also will be a concession stand, party rooms and skate rental area.

Here we are, back at the Allstate Arena in what just seems too early for the hockey season to begin. The Wolves are celebrating their 10th season as a team. It's not bad to be around only 10 years and have 3 championships, all of which were under the same head coach John Anderson, who is starting his 7th season. There's been only one player that has been with the team since the beginning: Steve Maltais. The team has a new "lower" affiliate - the Gwinnett Gladiators in the ECHL. There was a looong pre-game ceremony for the 10th Season celebration.

Then there was a video tribute to former Wolves teammate Dan Snyder who died in that horrific car crash. He was buried yesterday up in his hometown of Elmira, Ontario. The Thrasher's had their tribute before their opener on Thursday - tonight was our turn. Not a dry eye in the house. The Wolves painted his Wolves jersey number (19) on the ice behind each net, where it will remain for the season. They're wearing "19" stickers on their helmets. There were posters and banners everywhere in the stands. He was a good guy with a great life still ahead of him. He's going to be missed by the fans here in Chicago.

It was nice seeing familiar faces again, both in the stands and on the ice. Most of the team is back. Our main goaltender, Norm Maracle, is now playing in Russia (if I understand this correctly, he replaced a goaltender that was found dead, presumably a hit from the Russian mob... go figure...). That being said, we had Frederic Cassivi in net tonight. The team had a pretty slow start, but there was something a bit different - there's a hint of aggression, of attacking and not just sitting back. We were down 2-0 at the end of 2. It didn't look too good (we could score on a 5-on-3), but there still was this more aggressive intensity there. In the third, we tied it up and out-shot the Griffins 12-6. Unfortunately, it only took 1:02 in overtime for the Griffins to score, and we lose the season opener 3-2.

Still, I didn't mind what I saw. I saw them play much worse last year, and this was just opening night. Let's see how the year progresses.

If you would like to see the tribute to Dan Snyder from the Allstate Arena, including the National Anthem, I have it right here as a Windows Media file (.wmv) - it's 720 x 480, 5:38, 15fps, and it's huge - 67.3Mb.

If you would like to see just the Wolves video tribute to Dan Snyder, I have it right here as a Windows Media file (.wmv) - it's 720 x 480, 1:53, 15fps, 22.5Mb.

At about 10:30pm last Monday, Atlanta Thrashers Left Wing Dany Heatley (NHL 2002 Rookie of the Year and MVP of the 2003 All-Star game) was driving his 2002 black Ferrari convertible at over 80mph in a 35mph zone on Lenox Road near Alton Place NE in the Buckhead area of Atlanta and lost control on a curve, swerved into the opposite lane, crossed the dividing line and left the pavement before crashing broadside into a brick pillar and iron fence. The impact of the crash broke the automobile in two.

His passenger was Atlanta Thrasher Center and former Chicago Wolves player Dan Snyder (who was on the Wolves 2003 Calder Cup team). Snyder was ejected from the car and thrown 30 feet onto the road. He had suffered a significant depressed fracture toward the back of his head on the right side, and a classic "acceleration/deceleration injury". He was in a coma.

Now, Dany Heatley (who had suffered a broken left jaw, a minor concussion, a contusion to his lung, a bruised kidney, complete tears of his anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments and a torn lateral meniscus in his right knee and limited nerve injury to some of the muscles in his left shoulder), will be charged with vehicular homicide (it used to be just "serious injury by vehicle"), as well as reckless driving, driving too fast for conditions, driving on the wrong side of the road and striking a fixed object.

The fans in Chicago will always remember Snyder for his heart and tenacity. What a way to go.

The team was up to the challenge. At the end of the first period, it's a scoreless tie. OK, we're not losing. At the end of the second period, it's a scoreless tie. OK, we're still not losing. It's a tough fight. The, with 1:57 left in the third, the Griffins score. We pull the goalie for the extra attacker, and the Giffins score and empty-netter.

The Wolves lose. The season is over. The Calder Cup leaves our hands for destination unknown. It was nice having it.

And now, we bid adeau to our friends at the Allstate Arena. Until next year.

OK, here's where we stand: The Wolves played the first two games of this series in Grand Rapids. On Monday, they lost 4-3 in overtime. Tuesday, they lost 3-1. Grand Rapids is the Number 1 seed (48-22-8-2), and we knew this was going to be hard. I just wanted the guys to take one of the games. It seems like this team just wants to dig a hole and then claw their way out of it.

Which brings us to tonight.

Ten minutes into the game and we're losing 2-0, one of which is a shorthanded goal only 1:11 after the first goal. They're not playing well at all. A lot of weird calls by Craig Spada (one each side for diving). We get a power play goal toward the end of the first. The second period starts and the boys have more energy and are much more aggressive, outshooting them 14-6. OK, we can still pull this out. Third period rolls around, and the energy and aggressiveness is there, but wanes. It looks like they "don't want it." A bunch of players aren't seeing what's going on and actually look like they're not participating. Toward the end, it's a bunch of passing and no shooting. We go 6-on-5 - nothing happens. In fact, we can't keep the puck in their zone. Last 30 seconds - the crowd (3,110) is booing.

We lose, we're down 0-3 in the series. This team cannot win 4 games in a row against Grand Rapids. The next game is tomorrow - will it be the last one for us this season?

WOW. I really didn't think that we'd win tonight. The Wolves lost game 3 in Hershey and I really thought that was it. then, on Sunday, somehow the Wolves won 6-0. I still don't know how that happened - especially when Dan O'Rourke refereed the game. Tonight - Dan O'Rourke is there again. Great. Hershey scores first, we tie it up. The game was just too even. We were never really in control.

Odd thing happened in the first few minutes of the 2nd period - they were running birthdays on the matrix boards, and when it came to this 15-year-old- girl, all her friends that were with her started screaming. Well, not screaming as much as it was screeching. This screeching hits a crescendo just as the Wolves are crossing the blue line to attack - and the next thing you know everybody stops. The officials look at each other. the players look at each other. Next thing you know, O'Rourke is skating over to the off-ice officials and there's a little commotion in the box. Nicole the usher goes down and then takes off. It turns out that the players and officials stopped play because they thought the screeching was a whistle. (I have to give O'Rourke props for this game - although he was in the middle (as in, in the way) of two plays, he called an even game and let the boys play.)

We score again in the second, but Hershey ties it in the third, and we end regulation in a tie. I stood up during intermission and looked around at the faces of everyone on our side of the stadium. There was no look of confidence. There was hardly a fire in their eyes. Nobody had a good feeling about going into overtime with this team. I talked to Bob and Kevin and we all agree - we think Steve Maltais shouldn't play in the overtime. He looks tired, he's old... we haven't been happy with his play at all. Same with Rob Brown, who's retiring after 16 years. Last year, during the playoffs, the Wolves faced elimination four times, and each time got the win.

This time, at 1:20 into the overtime, after we swarm their net, Maltais scores the game winning goal, knocking Hershey out of the playoffs. Our next foe: the Grand Rapids Griffins with a best-of-7 series starting up there on Monday.

Well, this game sucked. The boys played flat, without emotion, without determination. We had a 10-game home playoff streak (since last year) that was broken. They looked tired and a bit confused. Hershey was just faster & Stronger. We went through both goalies and still couldn't stop them. There was one, intense moment in the 2nd when, being down 4-1, we had just a long beat-'em-up-shoot-the-hell-outa-them series of plays that got us 2 more goals, but we came out in the 3rd pretty much like we were in the 1st and went nowhere. Even at the end of the game, when we had a 6-on-4, 2-goals down, we couldn't even get on the board. Can somebody say "Wake-up Call"?
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So, the AHL Playoffs begin. The Bears are quick and, at times, aggressive. The Wolves played flat, never keeping the pressure up. Passing sucks, as it has all year. On power plays, they need to shoot more and quit playing that ticky-tacky passing drill crap. It just burns the clock and they seem to never come away with a score, even on a 5-on-3. Not a very impressive win. 3,318 in attendance - better than the first round last year. Of course, we have to suffer through the entire playoffs with those damn Thunder Stix as promotional giveaways.
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Carol and I get to our seats right after the doors opened and just about fell asleep, waiting for our buddies to arrive and the game to begin. The last game of the season, and not a great crowd - 6,244. And then we find out who's ref-ing the game: Dan O'Rourke, the same guy that we had problems with last month. This can't be good. Well, actually, it's not too bad. He's doing a pretty good job and he's letting the teams play. Good. We're losing 3-2 after 2 periods, and there's been a few nasty fights. You can tell that things are really getting to these teams, especially when there's fights after the horn sounds for the end of the period. The 3rd period rolls around and something happens. Somewhere along the way, O'Rourke starts calling bad penalties and totally ignoring others. The fans are in an uproar. But it's not only us - the broadcasters don't understand what he's doing and are at a loss for what's going on. Coach Anderson is livid and is an interesting shade of red. Dallas Eakins does a no-no: he starts waving a white towel like an Iraqi trying to surrender, and that gets him thrown out with a gross Misconduct penalty. Things got bad. The conspiracy theories fly - why does the AHL have against us? Anarchy ensues.

But - there is one thing that holds everything together. The game means nothing to the Wolves, but it means something to Steve Maltais. In the course of the game, he manages to get a Hat Trick (all power play goals), which ties him for the all-around scoring champion of the AHL. When the Rampage had the game in hand, Coach Anderson let Maltais stay on the ice to try to get the one point he needed to the scoring title. Coach even pulls Maracle for an extra attacker to help out (though it cost another goal in the empty net). Then, with 5.6 seconds left in the game, J.P. Vigier got a goal with an assist by Rob Brown and Steve Maltais, giving him the one point he needed to get the John B. Sollenberger Trophy as the leading scorer in the American Hockey League for the 2002-03 season.

San Antonio outshot us 37-25 (we only had 4 shots in the 2nd period). But, the seeding gets shook-up and we won't see them in the first round. Our first Quarter Finals playoff game is next sunday against the Hershey Bears.

And then it's time to leave the arena, drive home and collapse. I hate this time of year when hockey ends when baseball begins. Was a good time, though...

San Antonio really matches-up pretty well with the Wolves, which is not necessarily a good thing. No one scored on power play chances on either team. The boys were up 4-1 after 2 periods, and almost blew the game in the last 5 minutes of the game and we barely got out alive. After the game was what has now become the annual "Shirts off their backs" promotion, where fans, over the course of the season, won the opportunity to get a game-worn alternate jersey from a player, on the ice, after the conclusion of the game. (I just can't imagine how they smelled...) It's also Fan Appreciation weekend, so every got a scratch-and sniff card... wait... that's scratch-and-win card to get Wolves merchandise trinkets, and some good stuff up to a trip to Las Vegas. No good winners for us, though. Very sad on the way out of the arena - tonight was the last Adopt a Dog night of the season and we saw at least one dog that didn't make the cut. Was somewhat sad seeing the dog and it's handler looking a little depressed. End of the regular season tomorrow with same team... should be interesting, as it looked like there was quite a bit of tension out there. Also, the Wolves have 98 points for the season - would be nice to finish with 100, though it will mean absolutely nothing for the seeding in post-season play. the Rampage, on the other hand, could fall from their 5th spot (we're 4th) and we may not play them in the first round (and, after looking at tonight's matchup, it could be a doosy of a series that we may not get out of successfully).
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It's Armed Forces night at the game tonight. All branches had tables giving out trinkets and doing their pitch for recruiting. It was also the start of the year end merchandise blow-out in the East Lobby, where the team just gets rid of all of their merchandise, as well as practice jerseys & sticks. We have never played the Hershey Bears at home, and tonight was the first meeting. There had to be a busload or two of Hershey Bears Booster Club people that were sitting in our section. All-in-all, they weren't too bad. The game was really tight all night. We were just about even in shots in each period. Hershey was a strong team, always muscling in and digging out the puck. Pretty intense. The game ended in still another overtime, though this time we didn't get the win - neither of us did. The downside of the evening? Other tan screwing-up my throat, Carol broke a tooth eating some nits. Go figure. At least she's not in too much pain.
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The 9th overtime win of the year. this is getting old. We had the lead 1-0 since the first, but lost the lead in the third. We didn't look all that good out there, and at times almost looked lost. Good energy, just lost. Our buddy Bob showed-up at the game during the second intermission - being a Chicago cop, he was downtown "handling" the protesters. He came directly from his assignment, still dressed in his riot gear, but with his Wolves jersey on. (Actually, he stopped at home to leave his gun).

Another scary moment happened in this game. Jeff Farkas went screaming down the ice and got a little shove by a Rochester player, which caused him to tumble, and go down. He hit the boards at the end head first hard. the ref was right there and immediately stopped play, though he looked OK. His helmet was knocked back on his head. He went off under his own power and didn't return. He's lucky. It turns out he has a cracked vertebrae in his neck, but has full mobility and full feeling in his extremities.

Back watching the Wolves tonight. First thought: Philadelphia is fast and we have defensive problems. Way too much time in our zone. Very scary part in the Third Period. Francis Lessard checks Jim Vandermeer into the boards at the Wolves bench. Vandermeer hit the partition at the end of the bench where it meets the glass. He is rocked - goes down hard. You can visibly see him twitch at least twice as he's on the ice. Play continues and moves into the Phantoms zone. Vandermeer is in trouble. He tries to get up and barely can. You can see it in his eyes - there's nobody home. Play is still going on. The trainer rushes over to him. Play starts to leave the Phantoms zone and starts coming back don the ice when a linesman finally blows the whistle. Why? Not for Vandermeer - Too Many Men on the Ice because the trainer is trying to help the guy. Scary. Vandermeer is helped off and never returns. This guy was definitely in trouble and play needed to be stopped. Instead, Philadelphia gets a penalty for trying to help this guy in trouble. Later, after a little rough play in Philadelphia's zone, Vandermeer's older brother Pete Vandermeer screams across the ice after Lessard and starts hitting him. He doesn't get the best of Francis, and he gets 17 minutes worth of penalties and is out the rest of the game. On the way out, Pete Vandermeer takes a few swings with his stick at a fan. Ugly. Tonight was the 2nd night of the St. Patrick's Day Jersey Auction. Odd bidding - the new guys are going for $1,000 but the older vets are around $425. It's the opposite than what I expect. Who knows what will happen tomorrow. Too bad we won't be there to see it.

Back at the Allstate Arena. Tonight is the first night (of 3) that the Wolves are wearing their St. Patrick's Day jerseys that will be auctioned for charity. Two jersey's are already at $1,000. This year they also have a goalie mask that Norm Maracle was supposed to wear, but is a bit too tight. The Ducks are 12th in the playoffs, so they're out of contention, but they sure played hard enough. The game was pretty rocky, and they outshot us for most of the game. We had a few sweet goals, but it still looked like a struggle at times, even against the worst Power Play team in the league. There was a breakaway by Tony Martensson on the Ducks that was really stunning - this guy was fast, though Norm still stopped him. I suppose it didn't help that the Wolves were at the legal minimum number of players due to injuries and call-ups. Hey, at least we got through it. Officiating was very level, too. They let the guys play, they just clamped down on the fighting which is OK in my book. It was consistent, which is all you can ask for. Good job by Dean Morton.
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The Wolves have lost the last couple of games on the road. There was an incident this past week where 5 players were in the penalty box at the same time. Of course they lost. Tonight, we had the same referee - Dan O'Rourke. Lousy calls, no calls, and a tendency to blow the whistle way too early when he thinks the goalie has the puck frozen, when the puck is 6 inches away and free. Idiot. Biggest complaint? Inconsistency. We let him have it all night. When Earl (the Wolves Penalty Box official) told him "It sounds like you have a fan club," he says "They pay me to do my work." Prick. Lots of bad goals by them. Ours sure weren't easy. And we have still another overtime, but we come out on top.

Still another meeting of these two teams. It's Hawaiian Night and there's live music in the lobby. They're giving out cheap plastic leis, but the first 5,000 people got Blueblocker sunglasses (good turnout - 14,222). Before the game, we were talking about the bad blood between the teams and how long it would take until the first fight. Well that would be 3:58. "Frankie" Lessard just went after Shawn Legault (who had just been called-up a few days earlier). Lessard pummeled him, taking him down to the ice and just wailed on him. Lessard had no marks on his face when it was all over - let's just say Legault had his hat handed to him. Though he went to the penalty box, he got sent off so that he could get stitched-up ("Shecky" washed-down the penalty box with water from the water bottles just to get the blood out of the place). Nine minutes into the game, we're up 1-0 and we're outshooting them 11-0. Then all of a sudden, Norm becomes a sieve and gives-up two goals. By the end of the period, it's 3-2 Houston. We tie it up 10 seconds into the second period. At 7:09 in the second, Lessard and Legault are at it again, this time Lessard opens-up Legault's stitches and uppercuts him in the nose and the blood is just pouring. Legault isn't on the ice for the rest of the night. It took overtime with 25 seconds left to finally come out ahead. An awful lot of overtimes and ties that we've been involved with the past week or so. After the game, it was off to Chili's for dinner with Chelby & Damian who finally came back to the hockey games.
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Oh, crap. 3 days in a row, the Wolves play in overtime. Friday was a win after squandering a 3-1 lead. Last night in Grand Rapids it was a 4-1 lead that was squandered that wound up in a 4-4 tie. Today, though we started strong, the Admirals took the lead and dominated for a while, only to finally get back into it and tie the game 3-3. The story today was penalties, Either they were very stupid penalties or the "chippiness" and fighting just took its toll. On Friday we were outshot 39-28, today we outshot them 37-29. BIG crowd today - 14,926. No idea why.

Another game without Chelby and Damian. I'm feeling the need to talk about this soon...
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Well, Teri emailed Carol to say they had two extra tickets to tonight's Wolves game. Since I haven't seen the two of them in a while, I wanted to go. They picked-up Carol, picked me up at the office, and headed to the game. Mark's company is a sponsor of the Wolves, so we were going to have dinner at Allstate. I never new the room existed - it's on the north side up a flight of stairs. It's a really small room and tonight it's hot dogs, chili, and some great potato wedges. We linger long enough to miss the opening introductions (look, the fireworks are too damn loud!) This is the first time the team is back in town after a few weeks and it's the first game with the newly installed nets to protect the crowd from flying pucks. From the side, you can hardly see the nets (I wonder what it's like when you're sitting behind them). This weekend, the players' wives are selling hockey pucks for charity. the pucks are signed by the players (if the autograph is in gold, you get to meet the player after the game - no luck for us). During the second intermission we head back upstairs for Wolves sugar cookies (which I somehow fell in love with). The game had a few altercations. The Wolves were up 3-1 and squandered it. The Aeros came back and tied it up, and in a rarity, we win in overtime. They outshot us 39-28. I really don't remember the game like I normally do - we were socializing a bit with Teri & Mark and their son Joey and his friend Taylor - so we were a little preoccupied. Still we won and we were really glad we got a chance to see Teri & Mark. Teri & Mark's tickets are right next to Chelby & Damian - but they weren't there again tonight. Bummer.
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The AHL's Syracuse Crunch is auctioning-off their Zamboni on eBay. It's not the current one (I guess they retired this one last year), but it's fully operational. The last bid I saw was $3,050.00, and it met it's reserve. How cool is it to get a fully functional Zamboni for just over 3 grand? It does need work, however ("The washer tank is rusted, but could be replaced"). Still that's cheaper than the jersey I saw auctioned at a Wolves game a few weeks ago (coincidentally, a game against the Syracuse Crunch). (Auction ends February 4)Update: It went for the $3,050.00 bid.

Nothing to really say about the game tonight. Hardly anybody was there (probably because a) it's a weeknight and b) it's friggin' cold outside). There's no way there were 3,994 people there. Wolves were up 2-1 and let the Aeros back in the game, losing in overtime. Blech.

On a somewhat unrelated note, Chelby & Damian finally came to a game tonight - they hadn't been there since mid-December, and it's their first game since Edwin, Chelby's dad, died of cancer last week Wednesday (just weeks after diagnosis). It was surprising and sudden and the family his having a tough time handling the loss. They only stayed 2 periods, but it got them "out and about", and hopefully they enjoyed some time watching the game that they love. Too bad it was a bad game...

Went to the annual Chicago Wolves Season Ticket Holder Party at the Allstate Arena tonight. Same stuff - not any different than last year. Saw all the team. Went in the locker room. Climbed on the Zamboni. Free stadium food. *yawn*

This afternoon's game on the ice was uneventful as the Wolves beat Syracuse 3-1 (although, it was "entertaining" to watch the Syracuse goaltender Karl Goehring - he's only 5' 7" and when he crouches, he can easily fit inside the net). Off the ice, a little different story.

First, the pregame presentations and player introductions go off without a hitch. The National Anthem is normal, the lights come up, and the next thing we know, the referees and the officials in the box below us are having discussions. There's a lot of pointing - up at the scoreboard. Apparently, the fireworks have set off a small fire burning inside the scoreboard for about 6 minutes. They winch the scoreboard down to center ice and climb inside to make sure everything is OK, and then they winch it back up again for the puck drop. Total delay: 20 minutes.

Second, today is the last day of the Collegiate-Style Jersey Auction. This is always a big day at the tables, where somebody's jersey bidding gets out of hand. Now remember, the Wolves are a minor league hockey team. They jersey auctions (usually, at least two a year - a specialty jersey and a St. Patrick's Day jersey) are big fundraisers for charities. This was no exception today, as the cheapest jerseys were going for $600 and some select ones where $1,400-$1,800. The exception, that I actually watched, was for the jersey of defenseman Dallas Eakins. two women were standing by a clipboard, outbidding each other. The final winning bid: and outrageous $5,150. It's ridiculous, and "normal" fans have no chance of getting a jersey. No chance at all.
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Our "puck boys" are back in town at the Allstate Arena. Today is the first game (of three) that the Wolves are wearing their special "College-Style" jerseys which, of course, will be auctioned-off of Sunday. I think they're nice looking, but this is the first promotional jersey that they've worn that I've felt no compelling drive to purchase. The "College Style" to me is just... bland. In the East Lobby, they had the Calder Cup on display (complete with the Wolves championship roster affixed to the appropriate location). The Calder Cup is just so... cheesy-looking. I want a tiered cup, like Lord Stanley's or even the IHL's old Turner Cup (which we won twice) instead of this style.

The Wolves are playing the Manitoba Moose tonight. We enjoy going to these games for two major reasons. The first is to be able to sing the Canadian National Anthem (which we think is the best National Anthem to sing, and Wayne Messmer does a great job of it. Oh, and it's in our key). I know it's a minor thing, but it's fun.

The second thing is because of one specific Moose player: Jimmy Roy (pronounced "Roy" and not "Wah"). We just hate this guy. He's been with the Moose since '97, back in the IHL, back when the Moose were still in Minnesota. He's just a punk. But for some reason, he doesn't act that way on his home ice, so his fans have no idea what he's like when he's in Chicago.

We started taunting Roy starting with the opening face-off. If he was on the ice, we taunted him. When I mean "we", I mean groups of specific fans all around the Allstate Arena. Specifically, it's a chant: "Ro-oy! Ro-oy! Ro-oy! YOU SUCK!!!" It started across the ice by Sock Boy, it went upstairs to The Rafter Rats, and then it would come down to us - The Penalty Box Police. (A side note - That's what our group is called. First, it's our primary responsibility to "police" the visitors penalty box and hassle them as much as we can. Secondly, there are some Chicago Cops in the group, so Penalty Box Police is a bit fitting. We even have patches to wear on our jerseys (yes, we all wear jerseys).) We were chanting in a round. Anytime he was on the ice, we all took turns and hounded him.

Jump forward - it's the end of the second period, Roy is in some kind of skirmish with Dallas Eakins, and the two are being escorted off the ice to keep them apart. It was reported later that Eakins said to Roy "How does it feel to be a career minor-leaguer?'' Well, that just set him off and he gets a 2 minute unsportsmanlike conduct and a 10-minute misconduct. He starts the 3rd period in the penalty box, and , for all intents and purposes, he's ours. We start laying into him, but this time (for a change) he's not really reacting to us (I think that's another reason why we hassle this guy - there was a few times where we got to him, he reacted to us, and we totally took him out of the game. He was ineffective on the ice.) We weren't paying too much attention to the game, we're focused on Roy. Then, at 3:47 into the period, Andre Payette gets a 10-minute misconduct as well. This guy has been in the ECHL and was signed on New Years Eve for a try out. Naturally, we have to get into his head, so we start our taunting - and he reacts. Oh, that's all we need! from then on, it was the hell with Roy, we're after Payette. He reacts often. He was talking to Roy in the box (who remained calm and just served his time), and it was obvious they were talking about the taunting. After it was all over, Jimmy Roy never played another minute in the game (we lost track of Payette).

The Moose goaltender Alex Auld was unfreakingbelieveable in net. He made saves that just seemed totally impossible. In the end, even though he lost 4-2, his 33 saves made him the #1 star of the game. (A great quote from the Winnipeg Sun: Chicago Wolves coach John Anderson summed up Alex Auld's performance as only someone from the Windy City so eloquently can. "He was playing out of his friggin' mind".)Our goalie, Frederic Cassivi did a pretty good job as well, considering he hasn't seen much action since before Thanksgiving.

The Wolves scored the first goal of the game just 49 seconds into the game, but I knew this was going to be a hard game for the Wolves to win - they haven't been playing well of late and the Griffins have. The Wolves stayed in it, and it was a give an take the entire game - 2-2 after the 1st, 3-3 after the 2nd, but the boys came up one short and lost. That's three straight losses, and it feels like the boys are starting a freefall. They're trying, but they're not coming together.

As promised, in the middle of the 1st intermission we lifted a cup of Bud Light to our missing parents. OK, so it wasn't the greatest choice to toast with, but this is the Allstate Arena - there's not much to chose from here.

Tonight was the first game that we could see the AHL's newest team, the San Antonio Rampage, the AHL affiliate of the Florida Panthers. The Wolves played them last night and won 4-2. Tonight, we win again, this time 5-3. Not exactly stellar play, but San Antonio really had some very nice plays. Nothing much to really talk about. Boring game? No, just a normal game with nothing standing out to talk about. Oh, well.

The Wolves had a league-high 9 game winning streak broken last night, so it's time to start a new one. This was already the 8th game against the Admirals, and the 3rd Saturday in a row that we played them. I hate this divisional scheduling. Because of the loss yesterday and 3 games in 3 days scheduling (they play in Houston tomorrow), Coach John Anderson pulled goalie Milan Hnilicka for Norm Maracle. The game started out OK, and then gets a little scary when the Wolves let the Admirals get back into the game. Maracle stopped a penalty shot after a scramble in front of the net ensued, Norm lost the puck and Garnet Exelby jumps in and freezes it in the crease (which is illegal). The game was pretty clean, but there was a weird play in the 3rd. Simon Gamache charges and brings the puck right up to the net. A Milwaukee defenseman (didn't catch who) checks him and forces him on top of the net off his skates. Fortunately, Garnet Exelby happened to be around and he poked the puck in for the 5th goal of the game. By the end of the game, the Wolves had 13 power-play opportunities, but only scored on 2. Skates and his crew were dressed in their Christmas finery, and you know it's the holiday season when you see the Marines that are at the game manning the Toys For Tots collection areas are in the aisle dancing to "Cotton Eyed Joe". Our friend John was at the game for the first time since knee-replacement surgery the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It's was good seeing him again. So, it's time to start a new streak. We have another league-high streak going now: 8 straight home wins.
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Well, it feels like a long day, with it being my first day of work and all. It's weird, though - you can see my building from the parking lot of the Allstate Arena (not that I'm going to be walking there anytime soon). This was the first time we saw the new goaltender (from the Thrashers) Milan Hnilicka. He gave up three goals that he had no chance of getting - all re-directs off of our players. He's 3-0-0-0 since coming to the Wolves (better than his 0-11-0 while in Atlanta). Mark Hartigan had a goal and two assists. This was also the debut of Bob Nardella who looked rusty, had a few penalties (all dealing with grabbing the puck) and, unfortunately, he's one of our guys that deflected a shot with his stick for an Ice Cat goal. A couple of good fights tonight. At the end of the game, they announced a Gross Misconduct penalty on Sergei Varlamov, but it didn't showup in the box score. This was the Wolves' sixth straight win, but they're still in last place in the division.
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After still another lazy day of lounging and eating leftovers, it's back to the Allstate Arena for another Wolves game. A much cleaner game tonight compared to last Wednesday night. We had a bit of a noisy group next to us that was celebrating somebody's 50th birthday. Every time they flashed it on the scoreboard, the whole group would scream. Annoying. Anyway, the game was tied 1-1 in the first, and stayed that way until 35 seconds into overtime when J.P. Vigier scored the game winning goal. Norm Maracle stopped 35 shots and has been looking really good. An odd coincidence tonight - they showed a video piece from the Atlanta Thrashers on goalie Pasi Nurminen who was an absolute star on the Wolves last year and who is now the #1 goaltender on the Thrashers and now doing well. Right after that is when Norm gave up his only goal.
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We knew that there was going to be problems before the game when Mike, the AHL Official that runs the scoreboard, walked up the aisle and said "this is going to be ugly." By the first intermission, we all knew. In the first period, there were 90 minutes of penalties! Look at this:

There was something that happened that no one had ever seen before: at one point there were six Utah players in the penalty box at the same time as five Wolves players! Eleven players in the penalty box! Things eventually settled-down. Yuri Butsayev had three goals for the Wolves' first hat-trick of the season. When I was taking pictures of the penalties, I was surprised to see that that the Wolves are still wearing the "DC" stickers on their helmets in memory of NBC5 Sportscaster Darrian Chapman.

Back at the Allstate Arena tonight after a long road trip (the annual break because the Circus comes to town). Well, I don't know what's going on, but the team that I saw tonight doesn't look anything like the team that I have been following recently. Houston came in at 14-3-1-0 and is the best team in the entire league - The Wolves are the worst team at 4-9-1-2. What's going on? Yuri Butsayev is back from Atlanta and he was really cranked up. The Wolves also signed Bob Nardella today (but wont be ready to play for at least 10 days). This was a fun game to watch. Best goal of the night was when Houston goalie Dieter Kochan came out to play the puck in the near corner, Dan Snyder came up from behind and stole the puck, came around the backside of the net and beat him for a 2-0 lead in the 1st. 36 penalties tonight, with 2 penalties on the Wolves in the first 10 seconds. That wasn't the only time it was 5-on-3. At one time during the game, Houston had 4 guys in the Penalty box, and it was a 3-on-3. Referee Harry Dumas was way too quick on the whistle. Fun, fun game.
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Ewww... this game stunk. OH they were bad... This was the worst Wolves game I had been to in quite a while. There was no defense in this game. There's not much to say. It was bad. The only good thing had nothing to do with the game. The Wolves had a tribute to NBC SportsCaster Darrian Chapman before the game, as well as a raffle and a series of silent auctions to benefit the Darrian Chapman Children's Fund. He was one of two sportscasters in Chicago that really have a genuine interest in Hockey and the Wolves. The wolves wore little "DC" stickers on their helmets in tribute.

So Carol says, "Do you want to go to the hockey game?" Of course, I have to ask "Why?" "So I can get a ring." Oh, jeez. The Wolves are giving out replica Championship Rings to the first 5,000 fans tonight. They're doing it on November 2nd, our next game (we have a 21-game Season Ticket package, and tonight wasn't one of our games), but Carol didn't believe they would give out rings on the 2nd (they are), so we go to the game. (They also are giving out Magnetic Schedules tonight, the same ones we got on opening night). So we get our rings (we have three of them now, one for each championship). They're pretty cool, but they're just not something you'd actually wear out in public. The Wolves play the Ducks again tonight (same as opening night). The teams play a much more disciplined game, but by 10:55 of the second period Frederic Cassivi stopped only 12 of 16 shots and got replaced by Norm Maracle, who stopped all 14 shots that he saw. Steve Maltais had two goals, but the Wolves lose 4-3.

We returned to the Allstate Arena to watch the season opener of the Chicago Wolves playing the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks. First off - lousy day outside - low 50's and rain. There was a big tailgate party outside with live entertainment, free hotdogs and drinks - that we just couldn't get ourselves to participate in. Walking into the arena, we noticed something missing - the AHL mandated the use of protective nets to be installed above the glass on each end of the ice. No nets. (Found out later that the nets are on backorder, and should be installed sometime next month.) Before the game, the entire team was introduced. Then, the captain, Steve Maltais skated out with the Calder Cup trophy. It was a bit weird though - they had stuck dry ice in it so it was smoking up a storm as Malts skated around the ice. The team was presented with their rings, we all watched a video of the Calder Cup playoffs, then they unveiled the banners and raised them to the ceiling. That's always a great time for a fan of any team - to watch them raise a championship banner. So, faceoff was about 27 minutes late. The game started out weak. We seem to handle the puck well, and skated well, but we were down 3-2 at the end of the second period. I don't know what happened during the second intermission, but the Wolves scored 5 goals in the final period to win 7-4.

The Chicago Wolves continued their association with the City of Chicago Department of Animal Care and Control with their Adopt-a-Dog program. They set up "Dally's Dog Pound" - named after Wolves defenseman Dallas Eakins, who is a team spokesman for the program - in the East Lobby by the Customer Service Booth during 8 games this season (last season 98 dogs were adopted). It's really cool seeing the people interacting with the dogs and making the commitment to bring one home with them.

After the game, we drove home to a pitch black neighborhood. No power! One of my computers at home had paged me that another device (not on a UPS) had stopped responding at 21:52:01. I hate having to fumble with locks in the dark, un-doing the electric garage door opener to get the car inside, and just stumbling through a dark, quiet house. The power came back at 11:20pm - no idea why it was out in the first place.

A bright, crisp autumn day in Chicago. Carol and I had absolutely nothing planned for today, and somehow we felt like we needed to start to gear-up for hockey season, so we wound up driving to Bensenville to go to the last Chicago Wolves preseason game against the Grand Rapids Griffins. We've never been to The Edge before - what a nice facility! Two rinks, lots of parking, good refreshments, great sight-lines. The game was So much better than last Wednesday. It was refreshing to see the style of play was back to what we've seen in the past - lots of aggression, decent puck control, wonderful shot combinations.

Now, one of the aspects of these preseason games (other than seeing players that you will never see again after the next week), is that these are really community events at discount prices ($5 general admission), and a lot of families come out. The downside? Well, these are people who bring kids to the ring and don't really supervise them. So? Do you remember Brittanie Cecil at the Columbus Blue Jackets game? You go to the game, you MUST pay attention. There was a large group of 5-7 year-olds that were 7 rows up above the tunnel. There were NO adults with them. In the third period, a little boy (5 years old - maybe) got hit over the right eye with a puck. FREAKED OUT EVERYBODY. A linesman saw what happened and got upset about it, streaked across the ice to get a towel, and came back to get it to the people that were now trying to help the kid. When you see these many kids running around, and the parents not understanding what could happen, you just know that something like this would happen. It took quite a while to get some medical attention to the kid. Damn, I hate this. WAKE UP, PEOPLE!

Went out to get the mail... we received our Season Tickets from the Chicago Wolves, so I guess we're ready for hockey season. I'm still stuck on baseball, even though we went to that preseason game last night. Carol and I were commenting as we were freezing in the bleachers that it was hard shifting gears and watching hockey. The team didn't help - there was no flow to the game, it was just back and forth, lose the puck, screen the goalie, etc. Didn't help that you're looking at a bunch of new guys, and the teams don't have their names on their backs yet. Well, the Wolves got rid of 12 players earlier today, a few of the guys that were dressed from last night. The exciting thing, however, is that the Atlanta Thrashers (the parent team of the Wolves) just sent 5 guys down to the Wolves, all of them great players that were on the team last year. That should help, I guess. We'll see a week from Saturday.

Tonight, Carol and I took a quick drive to Rolling Meadows to go to the West Meadows Ice Arena. Our "Puck Boys", the Chicago Wolves, were having a preseason game there against the Milwaukee Admirals. Hey, the tickets were only $5 - how bad could it be? We always try to go to this game - the Wolves have been doing this for a few years now. Well, this was bad. Yes, it's preseason. Yes, the coaches are still trying to figure out who will make the team. It was still bad. The Wolves lost 8-1. There was no offense (we were outshot 47-26). There was no defense to help out the goaltenders. (Norm Maracle gave up 5 goals in a little over 29 minutes). The team can't handle the puck (as always) and can't control the puck. And there appears to be a little animosity between the two teams - I wonder if it started at the game last week? There was a nasty fight at the end of the First Period, that had everybody involved - except the goaltenders (which was actually surprising). By the end of the game, there were 8 Game Misconducts. Ugh. The season opener is next Saturday. They had better get their act together or this is going to be an ugly season.

The NHL 2002 Entry Draft was today and I think I know who we may be seeing in net for the Chicago Wolves sometime next year (or at least passing through to/from the Greenville). The Atlanta Thrashers had the second pick overall in the draft and picked Kari Lehtonen, a 6' 3" 18 year-old From Helsinki. Hes was the youngest goaltender in the top Finnish league (Finnish Division I) this season, helping Jokerit capture the league championship with a 1.78 GAA and a .940 save % in 11 games to capture league MVP honors for the post-season. He's also the highest pick for a European goaltender in the history of the NHL.

This is weird - something happened and I didn't even know about it. Not a big deal, it's just a sports thing. The Chicago Wolves are the AHL affiliate of the NHLAtlanta Thrashers. There is another affiliate of the Wolves, the Greenville Grrrowl of the ECHL. I never paid much attention to them - I just knew that they existed and that if there was a young player that needed more development, the Wolves would send him to the Grrrowl. Well, back on May 10, Greenville won the ECHL 2002 Kelly Cup. So, the Grrrowl won the Kelly Cup, the Wolves won the Calder Cup, and the Thrashers finish the year 19-47-11 in last place in the Eastern Conference, and worst in the NHL. I wonder how the call-ups are going to be next year?

Let me start by saying - I'm glad I'm going to the doctor tomorrow to get back on my blood pressure medication! The crowd was even louder, up from 5,022 Thursday and 9,115 Friday to 15,132, the second largest in the 66-year history of the AHL. Steve Maltais get's two goals in the first period only 2:15 apart. It feels good. In the second period, Malts gets another goal for the hat trick. Ooo, this is feeling good. Then Bridgeport scores a goal. And then another. And then another. Crap - it's the end on two periods and it's all tied 3-3. The officials start letting the players go - the penalties are stopping and the crowd is going nuts. Third period - no penalties, also no scoring. We go into overtime, and then something ugly happens. No one sees it because it happens behind the play, but Dallas Eakins is laying flat on his back with his arms outstretched, not moving at all. AT ALL. And Nobody sees him in the corner. NOBODY. The officials never blow the whistle, no team member comes over, play is at the other end of the ice. Pasi doesn't even go over to him. The crowd goes nuts. THEN the whistle blows, and Bridgeport's trainer is first to Dallas with other Wolves team members. The place goes quiet. the team doctors come up the tunnel. Next thing we know, Dallas is up and going back to the bench! No penalties were called. In fact, again, no penalties that period. No scoring that period either! We go into the second overtime. Then, at 2:05 into the second overtime, Yuri Butsayev scores the winning goal and the Wolves win the Calder Cup during their first year in the league. Well, the place went up for grabs at that point. I've never seen so much hugging and high-fives amongst the fans before. The team is going nuts on the ice. Then, of course, the obligatory handshakes. And then the red carpet gets rolled out, a table setup, and the trophies are walked out. Pasi Nurminen is awarded the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as the Calder Cup Playoffs' most valuable player. The Calder Cup is then presented to the team captain, Steve Maltais. Then the streamers and confetti rain down, Queen's "We Are The Champions" starts playing, and the team takes turns, passing the cup around player to player to allow them to skate part of a victory lap around the ice and show the fans.

Yes, I know it's only a minor league team, but in a town like Chicago, you grab what you can. And having a cup is, as Martha would say, a "good thing."
(Boxscore)

Back for Game 4 at the Allstate Arena. Bridgeport scored first tonight, and it was just a real flat game. A lot of tickey-tackey penalties. It just was going back and forth, pretty evenly - it was 1-1 after the 1st, 2-2 after the second. Then things started getting turned up a bit. The crowd was loud, up from 5,022 Thursday to 9,115 tonight. Rick DiPietro showed that he hasn't been going to his "Wandering Goalies Anonymous" meetings. Somehow, the kid thinks he need to play every puck that comes near him. We just need to remember that - and I think we do - to see how we can capitalize on it. Brad Tapper tipped in a slapshot from the high slot by Dallas Eakins. Andreas Karlsson had an empty netter that he struggled to get working over a Bridgeport defender, and actually got kicked by Ricky, who was sitting on the wall and not on the bench. Pasi Nurminen saved 29 of 31 shots while Ricky only saved 14 of 17 shots. We lead 3-1 in the series and actually have a possibility of winning the Calder Cup at home on Monday! How unlike me - a bit too optimistic, but it'd be pretty cool.
(Boxscore)

What a game - what a game - what a game! Back again at the Allstate Arena, this time for the third game of the AHL Calder Cup Finals. I'm still in shock that the Wolves are actually playing for the cup. The series is tied 1-1. I was hoping that the team can really take it to the Bridgeport Sound Tigers (and what the hell is a Sound Tiger? The logo says Sound Tigers and not Tigers). I really wanted to see the team stick it to "Ricky". Ricky is Rick DiPietro that I talked about last week. As much as I thought Jean-Francois Labbe, the goalie for Syracuse Crunchwas nuts, I think Ricky is just a punk kid whose ego is much larger than his current ability. Well, we got to him all right. He was making mistakes all night. Once, he went behind the net and half-nelson'ed one of our players, so he got a penalty for interference. Later, while there was a "fire drill" (Judd Sirott's words) in front of his net, Ricky was swimming and flopping around on the ice. He turned his back to the play to try to get up and yep, we scored on him. Later on in frustration, to clear the puck out of the zone, he threw it up in the air and took a full swing at it to send it down the ice - just a real cocky move. So we stuck it to them - the Wolves won 4-0. How sweet - we had a shutout, and we were able to score 4 times on Ricky. Aw, poor Ricky. Pasi Nurminen stopped all 28 shots (Ricky stopped 19 of 23). The crowd, though not as big I would have wished, was loud, and I know that helped the team (they've made a lot of comments in the press about wanting to play at home and having loud and involved fans. Guess we did our job tonight. I hope we can keep this up. (Boxscore)

The Wolves won 5-4 against Bridgeport in overtime in Game 1 of the Calder Cup finals. Really tense game. Was all tied 3-3 in the third when the Tigers got a goal with 1:43 left. I thought it was over, when Bob Nardella scored with 2.7 seconds left in the game. Then in overtime, at around the 10:30 mark, the lights went out in the place. I never heard a reason, but they must have been out at least 20 minutes. Anyway, Andreas Karlsson got the game winner. Bridgeport is finally a team that can really take the Wolves to task. It's a good matchup. Should be a fun series.

The Calder Cup finals have been set - the Wolves will play the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. Now, here's there's a couple of weird things about this. This is their first year in existence. Though the Wolves started playing in 1994, it's the first year in this league. Their Goalie - Rick DiPietro - played for the Wolves last year (he was really young - he turns 21 this September - and there were a few times he was shaky with us). I can't wait to see Pasi go against Ricky.

The Chicago Wolves win the Robert W. Clarke Trophy as the AHL's Western Conference champions for 2001-02! For the third time in Four Years, the Wolves are playing for a championship cup. The Wolves won 7-0 over the Aeros. Pasi Nurminen in unbelievable. I can't stop talking about how much this guy works. And a shutout on top of it. In the third period, the Aeros were trying to score at all costs. When on a power play, they pulled their goalie for a 6-on-4 attack, and came out with nothing. In fact, they played over half the period without a goalie just to get something. The team is playing like a team, considering that during the course of the season there were over 100 transactions sending guys up and down (or out). It's been a heck of a lot of fun to watch.

I really don't know how Pasi Nurminen keeps doing it! The Wolves won 2-1 of the Houston Aeros and now lead the series 3-1. Officiating - crap, as usual for the AHL. Very uneven all season. Tonight, just 1:34 into the first period, Dan Snyder got mauled at center ice behind the play. Referee didn't see it. So Danny goes back, puts his stick between the aggressors' legs, and yanks straight up. Guy hits the ice. Referee didn't see it, but a linesman does. Danny gets a Five Minute Spearing penalty along with a game misconduct, because they think it was with intent to injure. Great, there goes one of out leading scorers, whose scored game winning goals in 4 playoff games. Somehow, we still survive. Pasi stopped 34 shots, and the one he didn't was a weird wrap-around where Pasi was down on the ice on the other side. Just looked weird. Finally had 7,035 people instead of the usual 2,000.

Here we go again... Back again at the Allstate Arena, this time for the third game of the AHL Western Conference Finals. I'll be honest with you, and I think I've alluded to this a few times before, I am very surprised at being here. I didn't think a seventh seed team, that wasn't playing well, would make it this far in the playoffs. This is a best-of-seven series against our old IHL nemesis - the Houston Aeros. How much of a nemesis? In the old IHL, Chicago won the Turner Cup in 1998. Houston won it in 1999. Chicago won again in 2000 (after beating Houston in the Conference Final), and as far as 2001 is concerned - well, we lost the Turner Cup to the Orlando Solar Bears. But, the Solar Bears disbanded and did not make it into the AHL. However, The Solar Bears NHL affiliate was the Atlanta Thrashers - the new affiliate for the Wolves this year, so we have a few players from that Turner Cup team as well (like Turner Cup winning goaltender Norm Maracle, Dan Snyder and J.P. Vigier). The Wolves have met Houston in the Conference Finals three times in four years. Enough of the history. The series is tied at 1-1. The Wolves won tonight 4-1 with some brilliant goaltending by Pasi Nurminen. Man, I love this guy.

After the game, walking to the car, we got a little scare. The Allstate Arena is right under the approach to runway 22R at O'Hare - and I mean right under the approach. If you've ever been there, watching the planes coming in is great. I do it all the time when I'm there. It's something I've actually done all my life - watching airplanes. Plane spotting (as opposed to Train Spotting). When I was in grade school, I would take the O'Hare Express bus from Jefferson Park to the airport just to walk around and watch. (Now, of course, the Blue Line El goes there directly, but not back in those days). Over time, you know traffic flows. You know the airlines that serve ORD, you know their fleets. Just like any other hobby, or a fan of something, over time, you learn and you just know. I was watching traffic coming into ORD on the way to the game, noticing that they were using 22R and 14L. When we came out, I could see the traffic in the dark lined up. But something isn't right. There's and aircraft coming in, amd I can't recognize what it is because it's moving fast and it has only a single landing light. There's no strobes, only blinking red & green marker lights. Then as it flies very low overhead I can see it as light reflects up at it's underbelly... it's a damn F-15 landing at O'Hare... That's weird. And then I look down the approach path again, and I see another aircraft, this time no landing light, just the green/red lights. Another F-15... But this time, right over the Allstate Arena, it breaks right and pulls away... what the hell is going on??? I never found out. A few minutes later, a Continental 737-700 comes over and lands normally. The traffic around the airport looks normal. It was a little scary seeing military now a days.

OK, picture this. We come home from our fantastic dinner, and start to watch the Wolves game on AT&T Cable (They're playing the Houston Aeros in the second game in the AHL Western Conference Finals). The game is tied at 3-3, and continues into the second overtime period. Then, with about 6 minutes left in the second overtime, they make an announcement saying that you must tune to WCKG (105.9 FM) is you want to follow the game, because at midnight, they're dropping the television broadcast on AT&T!!!! WTF!?!?!? Why is it so damned important to air some crappy public access cable show instead of a hockey game that's made it into the second overtime period (at least)??? At 11:58PM, the Wolves score the game winning goal with exactly six minutes left in the period (Dan Snyder, his fourth game-winning goal of the playoffs), thus saving the fans from losing the TV feed. Still another reason why AT&T Broadband Cable sucks...

Watched the Wolves play the Crunch tonight on AT&T Cable (yes, I know... I have DirecTV, why do I still have cable? For backup... and to watch the Wolves, that's why..., well, that and broadband internet connectivity...) for the decisive Game 7 of the AHL Western Conference Semifinals. The Wolves won 6-2 and go on to play the Houston Aeros for the AHL Western Conference Finals (starting Friday in Houston). The Wolves became just the 13th team in AHL history to come back from a 0-2 deficit to win a best-of-seven series, the first team in AHL history to win three winner-take-all games in one AHL postseason (Cincinnati, Grand Rapids, and now Syracuse). How cool is it that two former-IHL teams are in the semifinals, guaranteeing that a former-IHL Turner Cup winning team will play for the AHL Calder Cup in the first year that they're in the league!!!

Back again at the Allstate Arena for the fifth game of the AHL Western Conference Semifinals. It was a whole new series, as the Wolves on Wednesday tied-up the series 2-2 against Syracuse. Their goalie, Jean-Francois Labbe, is a certifiable nut case. If you get under his skin, he looses concentration and goes nuts - even committing penalties like high sticking. We noticed on Wednesday that when he "conditions" his crease area, he stacks the "snow" on either side of the goalposts. OK, not a big deal, but he builds snow castles - huge mounds - and they're outside the posts, so if a puck get's anywhere near the net, it slows down or stops. And he stacks it up higher on his glove side than his stick side. Well, somebody must have noticed he's doing this because Brad Tapper kept going over a knocked his piles around. And this pissed him off. Bad. And then the linesmen would go over and take the snow away. And he'd bitch and complain. And it would get under his skin. And fester. And he'd get a little out of control.

Tonight was no exception. The snow piles didn't stay long. The linesmen were always cleaning them up. Labbe didn't look happy. Apparently, Brad Tapper took some quick French lessons from Guy Larose and was really yakking at Labbe. Labbe took a lot of exception to the taunts. Now, Syracuse scored first, but it took until the second period to do it. Labbe was still nuts. At the end of the period, he waited for Pasi Nurminen to leave the ice and skated up to him and went after him. That was the first of two penalties that Labbe had tonight. He just doesn't like being messed with. Oh, poor wittle Labbe... So, during the third period the Wolves scored three times (including still another empty net goal), and now, all of a sudden, Instead of being down in the series 0-2, we're up in the series 3-2. The Wolves travel to Syracuse for the final two games. I just hope they remember what it took to win here and bring that with them...

Back at the Allstate Arena tonight for the fourth game of the AHL Western Conference Semifinals. It's not a good omen when, in front of your own net, your own player who is charging the net to help out on defense winds up actually scoring a goal for the opposing team before he gets buried into the net (thank you Mike Weaver). However, the rest of the game was very good. Very strong play and we finally figured out one thing - to score on Jean-Francois Labbe you have to go top shelf. The Wolves beat Syracuse 3-1. Pasi Nurminen has been very, very, very good in net. Oh, another thing - Syracuse doesn't like to lose. They seem to be a bunch of sore losers, so Friday's game should be interesting.

A note: watching the matrix boards during the game for announcements has been interesting, but two items caught my attention tonight: Happy 30th Birthday Petey. Clearly, if you're 30, I think it's time to stop everyone from calling you Petey. And then you have to wonder what this person is like: Happy 34th Birthday Demonella.

On a totally different note note related to hockey or birthdays, we heard from Barry late this afternoon. He's back home from the hospital. He went through 6 bags of IV antibiotics and he says the swelling has definitely gone down, and that the throbbing pain has also subsided a bit. He's in that "uncomfortable" feeling zone right now. We hope he recovers well.

Back at the Allstate Arena tonight for the third game of the AHL Western Conference Semifinals. The Syracuse Crunch are leading the Wolves 2-0 in a best of seven series. The Wolves looked bad on TV, playing like, well, wimps. No aggression at all. Tonight - even though Andreas Karlsson got the first goal of the game, we're flat again. We're not finishing checks, we're not going after the puck. Next thing you know, we're losing 2-1 in the first period. Second period - same crap and we're taking stupid penalties like Brad Tapper cross-checking a guy in the back of the head. . Third period - something's different. They're finishing their checks. There's pressure in the attacking zone. All of a sudden, we're on a power play and Kamil Piros scores. OK, we're tied. We've got a chance. Then 10 minutes later J.P. Vigier scores. We get to the final minute, Syracuse pulls their goalie for an extra attacker, and Steve Maltais scores an empty netter. Wolves win 4-2, giving Syracuse their first loss in the playoffs. Game 4 Wednesday.

Such a cold, windy, rainy day... let's go to a baseball game! 43°. Thank God we made reservations for a window seat up in the Stadium Club bar at Comiskey. It felt good knowing that we could go to the park and not worry about how to dress for the weather. We got there early and got a good seat. Had a great lunch (the food is always good - the facility is handled by Levy Restaurants).

The game was "iffy" again. Oh, sure, we scored 8 runs in the first inning (Jose Valentin had a home run, and Tigers starter Jose Lima only lasted 2/3 of an inning), but that doesn't mean anything anymore when you have a questionable starting pitcher. Today it was Jon Rauch (who is now officially the tallest player to ever play in the majors at 6' 11"). Well, those 8 runs weren't very secure as Rauch gave up 8 runs in 4 innings. I still don't know how a pitcher can feel the ball and control it in weather situations like this. Finally, in the 7th, Ray Durham came up to pinch hit with the bases loaded (he was out of the lineup with a chest cold - yesterday he had an ingrown toenail dug out. Ew.) and hit a single (which was misplayed by Tigers LF Bobby Higginson) that scored 3 runs and gave us the game. Whew. Watching the game from behind the glass sure made the game more enjoyable.

Went to my parents' house for dinner. I jealous again - my sister is going to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival next weekend. She always goes to great destinations for these great little getaways.

Watched the Wolves on cable TV and they won against Grand Rapids and advance to the Calder Cup Western Conference Semifinals! We never thought they would go further in the playoffs! They now play the Syracuse Crunch (the number 1 seed) in a best-of-7, but we don't know when.

Oh, crap. I just got back from the Wolves game. To say the Wolves came out "flat" is an understatement. there was no scoring until Grand Rapids scored at 5:55 into the third period. It went downhill from there. Referee Ian Walsh didn't call anything and because of it the game play got out of hand. Quickly. There was one 5-on-5 melee that was pretty intense. So, the Griffins wind up on a power play to end the game. What happens? Somehow, the coach pulls Nurminen, just so there can be a 5-on-5 - only the rest of the team didn't know it - the final goal is an empty netter, with 1:20 left in the game. The real fight began when the Griffins' Wade Brookbank sucker punched somebody on the Wolves (it could have been Joe DiPenta), and a 6-on-6 donnybrook ensued - yep, goalie Pasi Nurminen skated all the way across the ice to go after Martin Prusek who was still in his crease. Walsh just stood behind the net with his notepad taking names. DiPenta went into the penalty box during the fight with a huge gash on his head and had to be attended to by the trainer. Somebody on the Griffins had his jersey stripped off and he was in the fight naked from the waist up (except for his shoulder pads). The linesmen were scraping the blood off the ice for a while after the gloves and sticks were picked up. Seven players got penalties, including David Van Drunen of the Griffins who got a game misconduct (you know - he must be the naked guy... I think that if your jersey gets removed, it means that you didn't have your fight strap hooked-up, and I think that's a game misconduct). I blame Walsh for all of this. He let it escalate throughout the game.

The Wolves lost 3-0, and now go back to Michigan tied 2-2 for a deciding fifth game on Sunday. (Boxscore)

Francis Lessard served his third game of a ten game suspension (a result of receiving a game misconduct penalty for physical abuse of officials last Saturday in Grand Rapids). Thank you so much for going postal.

Last week, I remember commenting that the Chicago Wolves wouldn't get far in this year's Calder Cup playoffs. Then the Wolves win a best-of-three series against the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks. On Saturday, the Wolves started a best-of-five series against the Grand Rapids Griffins for the Western Conference Quarterfiinals. The Wolves lost Saturday up in Michigan, but won yesterday. Tonight, they were back home and they won again 2-1. Yuri Butsayev had both goals, and Pasi Nurminen had 31 saves. Wow. This was pretty intense. Could it happen? Is it possible? The next game is Friday and Grand Rapids now finds itself in a must-win situation. Wow. (Boxscore)

Here it is tax day. Four years ago today I was released from Brunswick just months shy of 20 years of service. After a few consulting gigs, and one wonderful ride (while it lasted) at Whittman-Hart/marchFIRST, I'm still looking for a job. I hate this. It almost feels like the world is revolving without me, like I'm not plugged-in to the industry anymore. The job market is really bad, but at least a job posting or two pops up every couple of weeks. I can't imagine how many resumes these recruiters get for a single opening. Carol & I need to get me back in the stream of things. I feel like a cast-off.

Wow. It was another 3-2 game, but tonight the Wolves win and advance to the Western Conference Quarterfinals! On Tuesday, I didn't believe we'd make it. The team finally played with a good intensity and held-off the Ducks. Zdenek Blatny had the game-winning goal again, and Frederic Cassivi was great in the net again, stopping 32 shots. Another poor showing by the fans, though - the boxscore said 2,032, the lowest of the three games.

The other good news is that the guy that was hit by the puck yesterday was at the game tonight! Everybody knew what happened and everybody was talking to him to make sure he was OK. In a very odd way, it felt good that he was there...

So now the Wolves are off to Grand Rapids starting Saturday for a Best of 5 series. The Wolves are back in town on Wednesday.

Oh my God, this turned into a long night... Back at the Allstate Arena for the second game of this silly AHL Qualifying Series. It took two overtimes, but the Wolves won over Cincinnati 3-2 on a goal by Zdenek Blatny. The boxscore says there were 2,061 people there, which means the attendance was down from yesterday's game. There wasn't any "desperation playing" by either team. The game was relatively penalty-free. Both teams, though, looked pretty tired. It made me comment that the team that wins will win because of a mistake. Blatny's goal was on a slapshot that tipped off the glove of the Duck's rookie goaltender Joey MacDonald (who never played a game in the AHL before tonight). Frederic Cassivi actually looked good (and at times, stellar), stopping 43 shots (Last year, Cassivi led the AHL a 1.49 goals-against average during the playoffs with the Hershey Bears).

Oh, and I spoke too soon yesterday about "Chuck-A-Puck" - someone actually won the $500 tonight by getting their puck in the helmet!

On the downside, someone else was hit with a puck during the game. An elderly gentleman in the section next to us was hit in the side of the head with the puck. He wasn't watching the game - he was looking into a bag of candy that friends of ours offered to him. The security guys (like Rick who sits right behind the official scorers) responded quickly, and so did two paramedics who saw the incident from across the arena. Friends of the gentleman, who left with him, came back for the overtime periods. They told us that he got 4 staples to close the wound. (And to show how awkward this was, it turns out that this man has had 2 brain surgeries in the past). So between the candy, and the fact that the usher at the top of our section invited this guy to come to the game, there were a few people that felt bad about the whole situation.

How strange of a sports coincidence is this??? Chicago is playing Detroit in Detroit today. So? It's the Chicago White Sox at the Detroit Tigers, the Chicago Blackhawks at the Detroit Red Wings, and the Chicago Bulls at the Detroit Pistons!!! All today!!! Weird, eh? Oh, and on a different sporting note, I heard that the Florida Marlins ran out of hotdogs in the fourth inning of their home opener! How could someone let that happen?

The Wolves first journey towards the AHL Calder Cup began tonight... and nobody cared. Not the fans, and surely not the team. First, this round is just weird. The season just ended Sunday, and two days later is a best of three qualifying series of games. The Wolves (the #7 seed in the Western Conference) play the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks (the #10 seed). All three games are played here and all on consecutive nights (Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday). Well, there was nobody in the stands. The box score said that the attendance was 2,119, but that was paid. It sure looked empty inside the Allstate Arena. I think it was emptier than some of the severe snow days that we've had. The turnout was just bad. And then they decide to do their old stand-by charity event - "Chuck-A-Puck". This is where you purchase an orange, foam rubber puck for $2 (3 for $5) with a number on it. During one of the intermissions, a member of the Wolf Pack will go out to center ice and place a helmet (open side up) in the middle of the ice. Then all the fans throw their pucks onto the ice, trying to get their puck into the helmet to win $500. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever accomplished this. It's an easy fund raiser for the night's charity.

And the game? Well, the Wolves never looked like they were there. Pasi Nurminen was still a scratch (I wonder what really happened to him - he was "shaken-up" in a game last Wednesday). And then coach decides to bench Norm Maracle, so Frederic Cassivi was in the net. He tried. As usual, he had no defense to back him up. We had a 6-on-4 for the last minute of the game and we couldn't tie it up. The Wolves lost 3-2. Lackluster. No intensity. Poor passing. Mistakes. The words "they suck" just keep going through my head. They look tired and the look like they're not committed to this. Right now I feel that the Wolves won't make it through this crazy Qualifying Round, and I'm not sure they will win tomorrow. It's hard to root for a team that looks like they don't care.

Last Wolves game of the regular season. The Wolves lost 4-3 against the Houston Aeros. This is not the way to go into the playoffs. It looked like Norm Maracle didn't see any of the shots coming at him. I mean, Houston only had 17 shots! We need Pasi Nurminen back quickly (he got shook-up in a game last Wednesday). Instead - as our backup goalie, we've got a guy named Michael Garnett who was signed by the team as an Amateur Tryout! Oh, great! We now have the 7th seed in the playoffs. That means we don't get a bye in the first round of the "Western Conference Qualifier" - a best of three series against the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks on Tuesday, Wednesday (and, if necessary, Thursday). Great - a best of three series.

This was also the last day of Fan Appreciation weekend. They were still selling tons of old merchandise in the East lobby. After the loss, the team threw merchandise over the glass to the fans (which is always a cool thing). Then they had the "Shirts Off Our Backs" promotion - during the course of the season at selected games, the Wolves were wearing alternate jerseys (it's a cool black jersey, that looks similar to the Atlanta Thrashers (their Parent Club) alternate jersey). The jerseys were auctioned-off for charity (usually one or two a game). The winners came to this game and were escorted onto the ice after the game, where each Wolves player, one at a time, skated over and literally gave them their "shirts off their backs". Off course, they were a bit smelly and sweaty and may have blood on them, but hey - it's a game worn jersey! The downside to all this is the auction itself. Though it benefits charities, the average price for a jersey is $1,000. There are so many fans that cannot compete with this kind of money. Not only that, the vast majority of the bidders already have other jerseys that they have bid on and won!!!! Give us schmoes a break!

The season is winding down, and the Wolves lost to the Griffins again 3-2. This was just a case of being outplayed. Period. The Griffins were swarming, and just seemed a hell of a lot quicker. Before the game, Steve Maltais and Rob Brown were honored in a pregame ceremony to recognize that each player surpassed 1,000 professional games this season. These guys are getting old - but here's Rob Brown who's second in the entire league in points (83)!

Today and tomorrow are Fan Appreciation games. Today, they gave away a 1986 Classic Porsche 944 (there were entry forms given out at each home game). There was also Scratch-and-Win cards for everybody to get giveaway stuff (today we got a team picture and a CD from The Verve Pipe). The first 10,000 people got a pair of Thunder Stix - basically they're mylar tube balloons that you blow up and seal, and you bang them together. Let's just say they were way more annoying than you would think. Tonight was the last night of the Chicago's Department of Animal Care and Control (ACC) "Adopt-A-Pet" Program - there were 24 dogs up for adoption, and they made an announcement during the game that 16 were adopted. Before today, there have been 77 dogs adopted. Dan Snyder has a web page on the team website for the adoption program.

Oh, I got hit before the game tonight. Not with a puck, but with a tennis ball that was thrown into the crowd. (It's part of a Max & Erma's giveaway - there's Wolves Players' names on the tennis balls - if the first goal is scored by the player whose name is on your tennis ball, you get something). Well, I got hit in the collarbone. I couldn't see what was going on - Brad who sits in front of me was sitting on the back of his seat, totally blocking my view. I never saw the ball. And it hurt like hell - it caught the bone just right. Oh, well. I'm happy it wasn't a puck.

After the game tonight, we went over to the Ramada for a private WolfPack party in a suite. It was a bit too empty, and then we found out why - there was an after-game skate around, so everyone was still back at the Allstate Arena. We didn't stay too long - we were bushed, and with the change in Daylight Savings Time, we thought it'd be a good idea to get home.

Went to Chelby & Damian's tonight for dinner and, of course, watch the Wolves game on CLTV. Good dinner - lasagna. I love Italian food. Good lasagna. Later, during the game - a root beer float. Oh, yummmmmmmmmmmm... Of course, I had lost a few pounds just before going over there. I got on the scale and realized that I gained it all back. Nuts. Oh, the Wolves lost 5-1 (they're in Utah). They looked terrible and were outplayed.

The Chicago Wolves played the Hartford Wolfpack tonight. It looked dicey early when Hartford scored first on Olympian Pasi Nurminen. They looked pretty strong. But somehow, the Wolves got back into it and wound up winning 4-1! And to top it off, the clinched a playoff birth with their win tonight! Very cool, but I hold no hope that they'll win the Calder Cup this year. Rob Brown tied it up in the first, and is now tied for the league-lead in scoring with 78 points. Guy Larose had two goals tonight. It's nice to see him back from the Augusta Lynx of the ECHL. (Simon Gamache is also back from the Greenville Grrrowl of the ECHL)

In the third, there was a very scary moment. There was someone from Hartford that took a shot on goal. It was a rocket. It went wide and ricocheted high off the tall glass on the end of the rink. The puck came off the glass and somehow cleared the glass on the side of the rink and hit a guy in the second or third row squarely on the bridge of his nose. Well, everybody freaked as this poor guy is streaming in blood and pain, so the Rosemont police guys (who work the Allstate Arena security) ran (pushed) through the crowd to help. It took way the hell too long for the medical teams to get to the guy (5-10 minutes maybe). The guys was in pain and even though Rick (one of the cops that sits by us by the Penalty Box) was the first to get to him and had a towel over his face, there was still blood everywhere. Smalley and Kenny O told us there was blood everywhere in the aisle and they moved some of the fans out of the area. All that we could think of is Brittanie Cecil at the Columbia Blue Jackets game. Hockey is quick, people. Pay attention. (even though, I don't think this guy had a chance - the shot was a rocket). He walked to a wheelchair so that he could get medical attention. Everyone gave him a round of applause.

You know, if you've read this blog, that Carol & I go to hockey games regularly - we support the Chicago Wolves of the AHL. I have been hit by a puck once - took one on the chin after in bounced off some seats in front of us. It hurt, but did little damage. Now, in what is believed to be the first death of a fan hit by a puck at an NHL game, a 13-year-old girl died after being hit in the head by a puck that was a slapshot by Espen Knutsen from the left circle, shot over the high glass and glanced off another spectator at a Columbus Blue Jackets game against the Calgary Flames. I just saw the tape - she got up, and had a towel or something to her forehead. You have to watch the game and keep on your toes - you have no idea how startling it is to see a puck coming at you. This is really sad...

Well, 13,116 people saw the Chicago Blackhawks farm team, the Norfolk Admirals beat the Chicago Wolves today 4-3. The Wolves had some absolutely Brilliant play in the second period, but just couldn't catch-up. Norm Maracle actually looked bad, letting at least one of the goals go by him on a simple glove save. He gave up all 4 goals on just 19 shots - Frederic Cassivi replaced him in the second. For about a minute and a half late in the third, we actually had a 6 on 3 power play!!! And came away with nothing. Clean play, though - even with our new guy from Philadelphia Francis Lessard. He had 14 minutes in penalties last night in his first game with us. He set a franchise Record for the Philadelphia Phantoms in penalty minutes back in the 1999-2000 season with 416. The next year he had 330. He already had 251 with Philadelphia this year before we got him. Sigh.

The big crowd today could have been for the Coach John Anderson Bobblehead Doll giveaway. Or it was for the end of the St. Patrick's Day Jersey Auction. I didn't see a single jersey for under $700. There was a wedding during the first intermission. Both the bride and groom skated onto the ice (separately, of course). Too bad the groom couldn't stop well, and fell into a metal arch of balloons and flowers, toppling them and him. A bit embarrassing. Wayne Messmer came up the aisle afterward (he "hosted" the event) and muttered something about "Some people have no shame..."

The Wolves met the Philadelphia Phantoms tonight. A very good game, and I was actually feeling good about the Wolves again. We beat Philly 2-1. The Phantoms had only 5 defensemen available for the game due to injuries and a suspension - a pretty clean game, though. It was weird seeing Jarrod Skalde playing for them (he was traded to them on March 5 for Joe DiPenta, and now Skalde is an Assistant Captain). We're not doing too bad since Atlanta called-up All Star J.P. Vigier on March 13. And Atlanta is not doing bad either - they won 2-0 against the Colorado Avalanche tonight with goals from, yep, J.P. Vigier and Brian Pothier who was recalled on March 9. I even felt good about Norm Maracle - he's been seeing the puck pretty well. Not a big crowd tonight - 4,609 - pretty typical for a weeknight.

The Wolves wore their St. Patrick's Day Jerseys which will be auctioned on Sunday (a silent auction). When the doors opened, somebody put a $1,000 bid on Derek MacKenzie's jersey. In case you haven't been to one of these things, $1,000 is about average to low for a jersey. And the whole team's jerseys are available. The proceeds from this auction go to Easter Seals.

Another crappy showing from the Wolves as the Utah Grizzlies beat them 4-2. They still can't handle a puck. They were just outplayed. A fairly clean game, though. It was a Family Fun Fest day, whatever that meant. All we knew is that there was a bout a dozen 5-8 year-olds sitting next to us. Carol kept referring to them as a "Gopher town" because all she heard was the high-pitched "bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee" as they were all taking at once throughout the entire game. Most of the time, they weren't talking but yelling in each others faces. Weird. We think it was a birthday outing. The dad, who was in the row behind us, was just burning through is money. We heard him pay almost $25 for 7 lemonades, and he had done that twice, not to mention cotton candy for everyone and then snow cones, and it looked like he bought pucks for all the kids later. Look, the Wolves are cheap entertainment, but concessions sure aren't.

The last two days have been interesting driving on the tollway & expressway - there have been a lot of trucks that have been sitting outside collecting snow over the weekend. Now, as they barrel down the road at a high rate of speed, the compacted snow is shooting off the tops of the trucks in sheets, causing havoc for anyone following behind. You don't want to be behind these things. I saw another truck that didn't have compacted snow, just light snow on top. It left a blizzard behind it - you couldn't see the traffic in the middle of this snow-cloud.

On the way to pick-up my parents, I saw a huge fire over in Harwood Heights. I think I heard later on the radio that it was some kind of auto body place. It was kind of startling to see - being on the Kennedy expressway, you're sort of in a wide ditch - below ground level, so you don't see what's going on in the neighborhoods around you. Then, when I got off at Nagle, you could see the black smoke in the sky, not very far ahead. It must not have been burning very long.

Ah... baseball on the radio... Sox playing the Cubs... gotta love it... and the Sox won 20-6! And it was a split squad game for the Sox! Update: Of course, bragging too soon, the Sox split-squad lose against Arizona 16-5 tonight...

Hey, did you know that an ostrich's eye is heavier than it's brain? See, the daytime version of the Weakest Linkis educational!

Got an invoice from the Chicago Wolves for Calder Cup playoff tickets. Like they're gonna win the cup this year... We reluctantly spend money that we don't have and send in our ticket request (including a 25% deposit for next season's tickets).

Well, we set off to the hockey game in the snow. The traffic was pretty light - not many people wanted to be out on the street. The traffic moved well, and we were there in no time. I was surprised at how many cars were in the lost an hour before the game. The Wolves played the Rochester Americans for the first time at the Allstate Arena. The referee (Dan O'Rourke) called everything, even Delay of Game. Lots of Misconducts, too. He wanted to be in control of the game, and for the most part he was. He was consistent at least - all you can ask for. The Americans have a guy (Andrew Peters) with over 300 Penalty Minutes. Well, they lit-up our goalie Frederic Cassivi (3 goals on 6 shots) so Coach Anderson replaced him with Norm Maracle, who stopped the rest of the shots. The game ended in a 3-3 tie after overtime. The official stats say the attendance was 13,119 - I find that a bit hard to believe because of the weather, though there really was a good crowd. In a nice gesture, the Wolves are allowing fans the opportunity to redeem last night's used or unused game ticket for admission to any other regular-season game, Sunday through Friday, for the remainder of the season. Aren't minor league franchises great? The ride home wasn't too bad, though the neighborhood wasn't too clean. Now, the temperatures are supposed to drop to zero tomorrow night...

Went to the Chicago Wolves game tonight against the Utah Grizzlies. Huge crowd - 15,525. Don't really know why. I'm finding it hard to believe that the draw was the Norm Maracle Bobblehead Doll that was tonight's giveaway. We invited Janie & Gary (our White Sox buds) for their first Wolves game. I think they enjoyed it - after all, we won 3-0. Maracle was in net (probably because of the Bobblehead promotion) and he came through with a shutout. But you have to feel for the Grizzlies, though. This is their 16th game of their Road Trip. You see, they've been on the road for 32 days. They got "kicked-out" of their home arena - because it's the E Center and it's been occupied - it's the 2002 Winter Olympic Games Hockey venue! Things were "chippy" again tonight. The road trip has to be getting to them by now. Their first home game is Thursday February 28. (Their last home game was Saturday January 19.)

So, in-between periods or when there were breaks, we kept flipping over to Olympic hockey to watch Chicago Wolves goaltender Pasi Nurminen in net for Finland in the game against Belarus. Finland won 8-1. Not a lot of shots on goal - Nurminen stopped 20 of 21. The one goal was on a Belarus power play.

Why does it seem that I've been leaving friend's houses when the Short Track Speed Skating has been on this week? I wanted to see this, especially tonight when I heard the there was a four-person pile-up in the last lap in the Men 1000 m Finals. I'm watching curling now (The Men lost to Denmark 9-7 in an extra end (they're in 7th place now), and the women won against Russia 11-4 and won against Germany 7-6 and are now tied for 4th), and I don't think I can stay up and watch the Men's Hockey tonight...

ESPN2 had the AHL All Star Game from the Mile One Stadium in St. John's, Newfoundland. We (the Chicago Wolves) had only one player elected to participate - J.P. Vigier. I hated the commentators, who seemed to mispronounce any of the players from the old IHL teams. Vigier is supposed to be pronounced "vee ZHAY" instead of "vee GAYR" as the commentators said. And I thought that Bubba Berenzweig from the Milwaukee Admirals (and native of Arlington Heights) last name was pronounced "BAIR ens weyg" (long "i") instead of "BAIR ens wig" (short "i").

Anyway, it was Canada against Planet USA - the delineation is that the Canadian team has members who where born in Canada, while Planet USA has players born anywhere else. It was a shootout, with Canada winning 13-10. Canada had 5 unanswered goals in the second half of the third, until USA scored their final goal with .2 seconds left. Canadian Mike Craig of the Cleveland Barons was MVP with a hat trick.

Time for still anotherWolves-Griffins game - the 11th time they met this season. But now, it's like the Wolves are making their move up, while the Griffins are tumbling. The Wolves beat the Griffins 5-2. Got a chance to finally see the new goalie - Frederic Cassivi. Very impressive moves. He's won every game he's started. I wonder how long we'll have him... I wonder if he'll get called-up once Pasi Nurminen comes back from the Olympics...

Went to the Wolves game today. It was originally scheduled for 4 o'clock, but they finally moved it to 1 o'clock to get it away from the Super Bowl. When we got there, before the skate around, they were playing the Bears Super Bowl Shuffle video on the scoreboard. We got a new goalie, Frederic Cassivi from the Colorado Avalanche. He won the last two games that he started, but he wasn't the first one onto the ice for the warmups (first goalie out is always the starter - today it was Pasi Nurminen).

Well, it was the 10th time these guys have met. Good, fast, clean game. The Wolves beat the Griffins 2-1. The go ahead goal was shot by Rob Brown off of Steve Maltais' nose! Maltais got the credit!

Throughout the game, I had a drunk that sat right behind me. And when I say drunk, I mean drunk. He spilled beer in the back of my seat (though not too bad.) He spilled a fresh beer on his seat, so he had to sit in the row behind - he slept through the entire second period - even with fireworks going off after we scored two goals!. Then, when he was sitting behind me during the third, he fell asleep again, tipping his fresh beer and pouring it - slowly - into the aisle. The guys with him just said this was "normal" and it occurred "365 days a year". Great.

Our bud Scott who sits in from of us was in a 2nd intermission promotion on the ice. The object - stand at one end of the ice and throw a football into the net at the other end of the ice. There were 3 other people along with Scott trying this. They went through the group - no one got it, though Scott actually came close (the second guy had a GREAT arm). So since no one got it, they tried again. NOBODY GOT IT, so no prizes were awarded!

After the game, Pasi Nurminen was sent up to the Atlanta Thrashers and then off to Salt Lake City as Finland's Olympic Goalie.

I'm getting tired of watching these two teams play each other. This is the 9th time they've played. The Griffins beat the Wolves 1-0 in a game that was marked by not having tons of fights or penalties. But the Wolves just can't handle a puck. I've said that for a long time now, and you could see that tonight.

Went to the Chicago Wolves Season Ticket Holder Party at the Allstate Arena tonight - get together of ticket holders to eat crappy stadium food and meet all of the players, get their autographs, take their pictures, and maybe even play hockey with them - dome hockey or air hockey, that is. It was an OK time - it's never anything stellar, but a nice time.

Went to another Wolves game tonight against the Manitoba Moose. We lost 5-4. Same officiating crew as last night... and they still suck. More fights. One of our guys (Clark) elbowed a guy and got 5 minutes (he drew blood), but he also got a game misconduct. I hate these guys. They did a real crappy job keeping control of the game both nights. Lots of missed calls and wrong calls.

Today was the end of the patriotic jersey raffle and auction. There was a total of 60 jerseys up for auction (4 of them were up for raffle). I didn't win anything. bummer. They were great jerseys. And, of course, the prices at the auction were at the $1000 level for almost all of the jerseys. I think I heard they made about $71,000.

Went to the Wolves game tonight against the Cleveland Barons. Wolves won 7-3. UGLY game. Four Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalties in the 1st period. It just kept getting worse from there. The 3rd Period was unbelievable. Cleveland had three game misconducts, including one against the assistant coach. We wound up getting one game misconduct, which I thought should have just been a 10 minute misconduct. When was the last time you saw 2 7-minute power plays in one game? (2 minute instigating, 5 minute fighting, usually coupled with 10 minute misconducts and maybe a game misconduct). I think I heard on the post-game show on radio that Cleveland had a total of 144 penalty minutes. Cleveland now leads the league in Minor penalties (373), 10-minute misconducts (24), and game misconducts (12), and tied for gross misconducts (1). All of this in front of the President & CEO of the AHL, who was there to present J.P. Vigier with his All Star Jersey. (Vigier wound up getting a hat trick during the game. Think he was pumped?)

The team also wore special Patriotic theme jerseys that were being auctioned this weekend. Tonight's jersey was dark blue. A very cool jersey. Proceeds from the auction are going to selected September 11 charities.

Spent half the day going to stores to find things related to our DirecTV installation. First stop - cancel the cable and turn-in the cable box! That felt gooooood! Went to Radio Shack for a five-way phone jack for all my stuff in the family room. Had lunch at Sweet Tomato - a salad buffet place. Very good - we'll be going back there. Then to Best Buy to buy that replacement multiswitch. Oh, and buy the DVD of Buckaroo Banzai. Then off to home, replace the equipment, call DirecTV to resend the authorizations and voila everything works. I can't stop talking about how greatDirecTV is. Great programming choices, great picture quality (I love the Sony receivers), and above all, great customer service.

Went to the Wolves game tonight against the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins. First time the teams have met. The Penguins have the most penalty minutes in the entire league. (1,267 minutes - the closest teams are Cleveland and Philadelphia both with 1,089. The Wolves have 756. Wonder if that's why they also lead the league in attendance. They're also the worst in the league - they're 7-22-7-3.) Things got pretty bad with fighting, but they calmed down by the third. They wound-up with a 3-3 tie. It was Elvis night at the game - Elvis impersonators performing in the lobby, Elvis costume contest during the first intermission. Strange.

I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out... Went to the Chicago Wolves game tonight. The Wolves lost 6-3 to the Manitoba Moose. Lost their last 4 now. They're looking bad. I don't understand what's happening I don't trust any of our goalies. I don't trust our defense. I don't trust our vets - they're old and slow in this fast-paced play of the AHL. The new kids just get called up or sent down, so there's always a constant change in lineups. Not to mention injuries.
There's bad blood between the teams. The Wolves lost to the Moose in Manitoba Thursday night 4-0. Bob Nardella got a Game Misconduct for spearing. It obviously spilled over tonight, where we saw a rarity at 17:34 into the 1st period: both goalies - Norm Maracle & Alfie Michaud - skated to center ice, dropped their gloves and masks and went at it! Hard to understand, though - the both of them were smiling and laughing through the pummeling. Both got 5 for fighting and 2 for leaving the crease (which, somehow, I didn't realize was an actual penalty). At the Allstate Arena they also announced that both goalies got game misconducts - which they rescinded or corrected after the start of the second period.

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